Basically title. I’m a digital artist in the USA and not rich by any stretch. In fact, somewhat in debt. (Aren’t we all.)

I also try really hard to not be a mindless consumer. I use old equipment as long as I can, repair, refurbish, etc…

All this talk of upcoming tariffs has me worried that, rather than being able to get a day-job at newly opened US manufacturing for electronics or something, I’ll instead be paying +60% more on like everything.

I know tech is a depreciating asset, but should I try to upgrade now to hold out for the next ~5 years or so?

I was considering hunting down a motherboard/cpu/RAM combo for instance.

Are worries about tariffs overblown? Trying to figure out how to prepare as best I can with my meager resources before everything just…keeps getting worse.

I am getting paid for my digital art, it’s not living money though. My spouse has a more stable income that enables me to keep trying.

Thanks in advance. <3

EDIT: Thanks a ton for all the helpful replies! I’m glad I’m not being overly paranoid.

Some of you have asked for system specs so here they are for the curious:

System Specs:
  • OS: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
  • Mobo: Z590 Aorus Elite AX
  • CPU: i7-10700k @ 5.1 Ghz
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090
  • Mem: 32GB DDR4 (forget the speed…3000?)

I want to be clear: I don’t mean to sound too panicked and I’m more than happy to be content with what I have and see my blessings for what they are.

However, as I’m trying to break into being a 3D Blender artist and gamedev professionally, I’m trying to strategize whether standards will significantly increase and leave me behind in the next 5 years or so. (Game industry, not trying to do Hollywood VFX models on my home rig or anything lol)

I don’t game so much these days unfortunately. And if I do, like 5% of my library is particularly demanding. 😂

  • MonkeMischief@lemmy.todayOP
    1·
    4 days ago

    Speaking of bricking hardware. I’m very upset that they’re just dumping Windows Mixed Reality because it isn’t making them 10,000% returns or something.

    Lots of wonderful HMDs will just be paperweights without a ton of work.

    “Can you release the code to us to keep em running then?”

    M$: “Lol no.”

    If anything, maybe we’ll see a lot of good hardware going for cheap, ripe for the taking by anybody who knows how to use a boot USB and doesn’t care about TPM. :)

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
      21·
      3 days ago

      Yeah I imagine most those computers will just become “linux” computers by default.

      Its interesting you mention the hardware side of VR, I hadn’t considered it since my biggest gripe is that each headset plus pcvr is siloed off for a specific device. There might be enough games to sustain VR if there was a single marketplace for it, and all headsets were designed around that.

      I think right now each company still thinks they can be that single marketplace, so theres too many chefs in the kitchen.

      Is microsoft actually bricking their WMD headsets or just not supporting them anymore? Could you still treat it as a retro gaming console?

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.todayOP
        1·
        3 days ago

        There’s an effort called Monado that’s making strides, but we hope there’s a sustained interest and a breakthrough of some sort. The controllers are no-go at the moment.

        Is microsoft actually bricking their WMD headsets or just not supporting them anymore? Could you still treat it as a retro gaming console?

        So they’re not literally “bricking them”, but effectively doing so. They require “Windows Mixed Reality” to run, all the drivers are proprietary, and M$ is “deprecating WMR”, at which point it will no longer be offered, and will be taken down from the Microsoft Store.

        So basically you’d require an un-updated Windows 10 machine that previously had it installed, or else the device is a paperweight.

        They can’t even pretend to have any kind of “environmental responsibility” when they’re actively just creating tons of e-waste as a matter of policy.