Computation is in a Race between Personalization and Generalization

Just listening to the latest in-game chat podcast here regarding the reduction in cost of internet infrastructure (i.e. bandwidth), and I think there were some good points made, but I think I would take it another direction slightly.

I think technology is developing rapidly in two directions.  First, as was discussed on the podcast mentioned above is that bandwidth is becoming cheaper, “cloud” and cloud-like services are becoming more prevalent, but it’s also the case that computing power is getting cheaper and ever more personal.  For all intents and purposes, in a few short years, nearly everyone’s phone will behave as a essentially a small little computer (with possibly similar power to today’s entry-level laptops).

Generalized computation leads to service based models (think OnLive or Netflix) and personalized computation leads to ownership models (think PCs or video games).

As prices over time asymptotically approach zero for both, the question is which will have fewer barriers to adoption.

I would like to go further on this and explain why I would much prefer the personalized computation route (short version: because it empowers consumers rather than companies), but for the time being, I will leave it off here.