Scarcity used to define technology. Storage was counted in megabytes. Compute was rationed in cycles. Every byte mattered. Engineers bent their minds around constraints, inventing clever tricks to make the impossible fit into the possible.
Today, abundance defines technology. We carry supercomputers in our pockets, rent infinite servers with a credit card, and spin up AI models that once required entire research labs. By any rational measure, we should feel rich. Yet somehow, we still feel poor.
More compute, more storage, more AI — and still, not enough.
The paradox is that abundance breeds new appetites. Every leap forward doesn’t end the hunger, it multiplies it. As soon as storage becomes cheap, we generate more data. As soon as compute becomes plentiful, we demand more sophisticated models. As soon as AI writes code, we start asking it to design companies. The supply creates the demand.
Think of social media. Early Twitter was 140 characters at a time. Simple, constrained, charming. Then bandwidth grew, storage costs fell, and suddenly we had images, then video, then livestreams. More abundance, but also more noise. Did anyone feel more satisfied?
The same is true in infrastructure. AWS promised infinite scale, and it delivered. But instead of feeling secure, companies live in constant anxiety about costs, outages, and complexity. Abundance didn’t bring peace of mind — it brought more moving parts.
And now we’re seeing it again in AI. Models keep getting bigger, more powerful, more capable. But the more we have, the more insufficient it feels. GPT-4 isn’t enough because GPT-5 exists in theory. The frontier keeps moving, and with it, the baseline of what feels possible.
Abundance should free us. But often, it traps us in an arms race. The more we have, the less impressive it feels. Constraints once forced us to focus. Abundance tempts us to sprawl.
The companies — and the people — who thrive in this era won’t be the ones who consume the most resources. They’ll be the ones who know where to stop. Abundance will always promise more. The hard part is learning to say enough.