I've been on the Discord for a couple of years now, and poking around with submissions as well. Sean and the entire team deserve so much praise for all of this work.
It's easy to just read about the breakthrough and see it as one neat, linear line to get there, and hard to comprehend the hours, months and years that so many spent to get there. Big congrats to you, Sean, Nat and the entire team!
I think your point on costs here is right. I was treating “computer software” as anything that consumers use: apps that provide a service for free in exchange for data, etc.
My original list was just some brief examples, all of which I think hold up, but not nearly the entire list of data center benefits to all consumers. (One of those other benefits being the means to have this very conversation). There isn’t much of a way I can see to remove data centers from the technological progress we’ve benefited from over the last couple of decades.
I agree with your take on tradeoffs when it comes to DCs that are built with tax abatements, which are a terrible deal for consumers. Those that are not receiving tax benefits will make up for short-term energy prices with long-term property tax benefits, that will eventually pay back the grid upgrades and fund even more upgrades in the future.
I don't see a widespread issue in keeping the lights on, outside of the Lake Tahoe fubar.
Considering utility rates, I would happily pay more for utilities in the short term to have 30+ years of lower property taxes. The data centers property taxes would go to paying for that buildout, and over time it's a great deal for consumers. That said, I'm in Texas so the property tax issue is more prevalent than it would be in New York.
Nearly unlimited cloud storage - AWS / Google / etc. Data centers are the Cloud
Lower property taxes - data centers increase the property tax base, creating tax compression, which shift property tax from consumer –> company. I'm in Texas, so can only be sure that is true here. I have not looked at all other states.
I would think that consumers would vastly benefit from cheaper software, nearly unlimited cloud storage, lower property taxes. Heck, the next generation of data centers are looking like they will actually be net energy producers.
Consumers might not know that they benefit from data centers, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t
It is also worth noting that the non-wealthy pay for higher education in two ways: first through tuition, and second through the taxes required to fund the very programs that provided their "discount."
Really cool and interesting. I definitely think the market is there for this.
I'm betting that your biggest hurdle will be post-purchase. If I remember correctly, Tony Fadell talks about how hard it was to disrupt the contractor model when building Nest. People often just bought whatever thermostat their contractor recommended, and those contractors were incentivized to push them towards specific brands. They beat this by just making the product super easy to install by the consumer and cutting out the contractor all together (something I doubt is feasible with a heat pump).
Maybe that won't be a problem with the DTC model considering the contractor is only brought in post-purchase, but I wonder if this really takes hold if competitors start trying to corner local installers. Good luck!
It's easy to just read about the breakthrough and see it as one neat, linear line to get there, and hard to comprehend the hours, months and years that so many spent to get there. Big congrats to you, Sean, Nat and the entire team!