Software expands to consume the computing power made available by hardware improvements.
Named for Andy Grove of Intel and Bill Gates of Microsoft. It is why a 2024 laptop opens a text editor no faster than a 2004 one.
In practice
- A messaging app adds video, then stickers, then payments, until the phone that ran it comfortably in March struggles in October.
- A finance team's spreadsheet grows every time the laptops get faster, and always takes ninety seconds to open.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Technology & Software
- Essay
- The programmers' folklore, and technology's place in society