I live in a rural community with lots of dirt roads, manufactured homes, and empty fields dotted with litter. When we moved here, I was a little bit worried, but I’ve grown to like it here. Not only is it actually kind of nice, but it’s also the only place we could afford.

Moving out to a location like this has its downsides:

That last one is important.

For every major metropolitan sprawl getting upgraded to Google Fiber, there are dozens of little communities that have to rely on personal septic, propane tanks, and satellite internet.

Internet speeds are getting more and more important. Working from home is much easier when you don’t need to worry about a business call taking up all the bandwidth. But one area I never expected to worry about the internet was single-player gaming.

Game streaming is the future, but I really don’t want it to be for hundreds of reasons.

I’m not going to say that gaming was better when you had to get off the couch, dust off the cartridge, and plug in your controllers. I like convenience enough to admit, I don’t want to go back to that, but I also like convenience enough to admit - I want my games to be playable regardless of internet speeds.

My thoughts on game streaming aside, cloud computing has been slowly creeping into my nightmares like an ill omen.

If you don’t know, there’s a big shortage of computing components. Basically, the stuff people use to make computers are harder to find because AI data centers are buying up most, if not all, of the stock. It’s why the Steam Machine got delayed, and it’s why most people can’t afford to build an up-to-date computer anymore.

With the high demand, prices have gone crazy, and my worry here, and many other people’s worry, is that computers will soon be something that only businesses can own.

So, where does that leave the people without thousands of dollars in excess?

They’re customers.

People are starting to worry that in the not-so-distant future, no average American will actually own a computer. They will rent machines that will use cloud computing to run.

If you don’t know, the way this works is that you can use the internet to get access to a server of computers that have higher graphics cards, the ram, and high processing power.

This is already a thing for game streaming, and a lot of people love it.

But where does that leave the people tottering at the poverty line, living in a rural community that only has access to satellite internet? Those who can’t afford any subscription, let alone one just to use a computer? Are video games an art form only for the affluent?