Stratechery Thin Is In
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Feb 17, 2026 A tour of computing from mainframes and thin terminals to thick mobile devices and browsers acting like operating systems. A look at chat and AI agents making devices less important as cloud compute and memory centralize. Discussion of memory shortages, supply-chain shifts toward AI-grade hardware, and how invisible agents could reshape user interfaces and business workflows.
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Sun's Network Computer Failure
- Ben Thompson recalls Sun's network computer push that ran Java applets from a server and failed.
- He uses this history to show why thick clients like PCs decisively won in the 1980s–90s.
Device Irrelevance Of Chat Interfaces
- AI chat interfaces make the device irrelevant because the interaction is just text in and text out.
- Ben Thompson argues the quality of the experience depends on remote compute, not local hardware.
UI-Based Switching Costs Evaporate
- Natural language interfaces erase years of user muscle memory and reduce switching costs.
- Thompson cites Nicholas Bustamante's point that vertical SaaS pricing based on UI workflow is threatened.