Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, tech was a foundational part of my childhood.

I built more physical computers than I can remember. We went from paper maps to GPS (which itself evolved from DVDs with static maps to internet-connected real-time navigation). CD players became MP3 players, then streaming services. We had Palm Pilots and early attempts at “smart” phones, which were anything but. Our computers could search for extraterrestrial life through SETI. We emerged from the pager era to portable phones to the entire internet in our pocket (which evolved from charging per SMS or megabyte to unlimited data plans).

We went through what I still think of as a golden era of console gaming: the N64 & PlayStation, then PS2, Xbox, and GameCube. Meanwhile, our bulky CRT monitors became flat (with a misadventure toward “projection” TVs in between). We could buy gadgets for everything. Best Buy and RadioShack felt like amusement parks we’d visit without intention, ready to be drawn in by something new. A trip to Asia’s electronics stores felt like a genuine step into the future.

Today, we have everything we did back then, and much more. And yet it somehow feels like we’ve been left with less.

In the early 2000s, tech began a decades-long consolidation. Almost everything we used before became a function of a single device. Objectively, this was an improvement—old VCR interfaces were awful, early MP3 players were clunky, GPS lacked real-time traffic data, and nothing talked to each other. And yet, through that consolidation, something intangible was taken from us.

Our devices lost their unique personalities. Phones became our alarm clocks, flashlights, calendars, watches, cameras, GPS units, music players, radios, journals, and gaming devices—all at once. We betrayed our focus in the pursuit of convenience, and the personality of our devices for homogeneity.

The benefits were clear to us, but the costs weren’t.

This convergence created winner-take-all (and two-player) markets. Console gaming became PlayStation or Nintendo. Phones became Android or iOS. Computers became Mac or Windows. PC gaming became synonymous with Steam. Everything else became a feature inside one of those platforms, with globally synchronized updates making our experiences increasingly uniform, and bland.

For a long time, that felt inevitable. But it’s only become clear in retrospect that somewhere in the early 2020s, things started to change.

New paradigms are emerging for the first time since mobile. VR is no longer experimental. Early AR is starting to reach consumers. Meta shipped a wearable that normal people actually use, thanks to a clever Ray-Ban partnership (and associated equity stake). 3D printers have become real household products. Wearables are diversifying—smart rings, over-the-counter glucose monitors, connected beds.

Meanwhile, Apple’s aggressive push for services revenue has alienated developers and users alike, creating space for alternatives. And nostalgia has revealed itself as massive, underserved economic demand.

Gen-Z is buying single-purpose iPods and wired headphones. Pokémon cards are trendy. My friends and I are amassing N64 game collections again. There is a revived appetite for film cameras and Polaroids. Companies are recreating old hardware in modern form—ModRetro’s upcoming FPGA-based M64 plays native N64 cartridges, following their successful Game Boy recreation. They’re now working to bring a “next-gen” CRT monitor to market. The Playdate proved there’s still room for third-party handhelds with their own unique philosophies. Even Nintendo couldn’t resist capitalizing with the re-release of their classic consoles.

Design matters again. In our devices, and in our lives. Art Deco is in vogue. Cyberpunk has never been more culturally mainstream. Color is back, and bold.

Canon, Sony, and Nikon may have replaced Kodak for professionals, but Leica is thriving again and Kodak Instamatic has gone viral. People want devices that feel personal—leather finishes, physical controls, intentional constraints. For years this expression was limited to phone cases. Now it’s showing up in hardware itself.

Tech is starting to resemble the wristwatch market: collaborations, limited editions, exclusivity. A market with many players—emerging companies, niche studios, design-forward brands, and even failing companies—is healthier than one dominated by a few giants.

Antitrust pressure has slowed consolidation, opened app distribution, killed the anti-competitive iMessage and AirDrop moats, and made big tech cautious about horizontal expansion. And yet market forces may matter even more. Subscriptions keep multiplying. Advertising creeps into everything. Consolidated platforms are becoming bloated, degrading experiences. Platforms extract value in ways that betray their original philosophies.

Apple’s push toward services has been financially successful but culturally damaging. Users are looking elsewhere. It was imperceptible at first, but that sentiment is spreading.

Barriers to entry are lower than they’ve been in decades. Software can be deployed in minutes. Hardware is still hard, but 3D printing has revolutionized prototyping and accessible manufacturing services have drastically lowered the cost and time to market. Even the consolidation on the USB-C standard has played a role, allowing switching devices without investing in a new ecosystem.

We’ve also grown tired of curation by algorithm. What we watch is shaped by recommendation engines. How we perceive it is influenced by aggregate ratings. I miss wandering through video stores, choosing based on nothing more than a cover. Discovery felt accidental and my opinions felt like my own.

Burnout plays a role too. A Timex ad went viral this year: “Know the time without seeing you have 1,249 unanswered emails.” People are gravitating toward rigid, single-purpose experiences that let them fully disengage.

Our appetite for alternatives has grown, while they’ve also become easier to create. LLMs and modern tools have lowered the effort required to build things. Side projects are easier to start and finish. Even when large companies offer better experiences on paper, individuals are building alternatives for the joy of it. Some go viral. Consumers end up with more choice.

Nothing would have been harder to project than the growth of Linux on the desktop. Integrated platforms seemingly made the Linux philosophy untenable, and yet it may now be growing as a direct result of this decoupling. This was a feature, not a bug.

Looking at my own purchases from 2025, the pattern becomes obvious:

  • TRMNL (a no-distraction e-paper display)
  • Ray-Ban Meta glasses
  • Leica D-LUX
  • Wired headphones
  • Android Pixel Pro (alongside iPhone)
  • ASUS ROG laptop (for CUDA and gaming)
  • Matic AI vacuum
  • Govee programmable lights
  • 28 TB Seagate hard drive
  • Bambu Labs P1S 3D printer
  • Kindle (finally retiring my last mini-USB device)
  • Oura Ring
  • Abbott Lingo glucose sensor
  • iPad (single-purpose: as a second MacBook display while traveling)
  • More mechanical watches than I can count (while not tech per se, it does reduce the breadth of the Apple ecosystem)

This is more than I’ve bought in the last 5 years, and I’m already excited for 2026. While Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Google still appear in my list, their purposes are narrower for me than in the past, and their presence is often no longer part of a two-player market. To be clear, these companies often make great products that should exist, but they should be easy to use as standalone à la carte offerings, not forced omakase experiences.

We’ll never truly recreate the late 80s or mid-90s. SaaS, subscription pricing, and centralized platforms are here to stay. But this feels like the beginning of another golden era—one defined less by consolidation and more by variety, personality, and choice.