The Reason Government is a Resource Hog

April 17, 2026

When I was growing up, I had a Commodore 64. That probably dates me a bit—but in the 1980s, that machine felt cutting-edge.

In reality, it was closer to a glorified keyboard that connected to a TV, not unlike early gaming consoles. The “64” referred to its memory: 64 kilobytes of RAM.

That’s not a mistake—kilobytes. To put that in perspective, modern smartphones typically carry several gigabytes of RAM, and a single gigabyte is about a million times larger than a kilobyte.

Even a basic email today, without attachments, can approach 100 kilobytes—meaning one message can exceed the entire memory capacity of that old machine. And yet, developers in that era managed to build surprisingly sophisticated programs with those limitations.

Games ran smoothly, documents were written and printed, and entire systems operated within constraints that seem almost impossible by today’s standards. The same was true across early consoles from companies like Nintendo and Sega, where developers delivered memorable titles using minimal resources.

That level of performance didn’t happen by accident. Programmers had to be extremely disciplined. Every line of code mattered. Every byte had to justify its existence. There was no room for excess, and teams often had to make difficult choices about which features made the cut and which didn’t.

In other words, they worked within strict limits—and still produced enduring results.

Over time, however, hardware improved dramatically. Memory became cheaper and far more abundant. What was once a scarce resource turned into something developers rarely had to think about. Megabytes gave way to gigabytes, and eventually it started to feel like there were no real limits at all.

With that shift, inefficiency began to creep in.

Today, it’s common for a single browser tab to consume hundreds of megabytes of memory. Basic applications use vastly more resources than entire systems once did. Even simple file browsing can require memory levels that would have seemed absurd decades ago.

This isn’t a matter of capability—it’s a matter of discipline. When constraints disappear, so does the incentive to optimize.

Now, with rising demand driven in part by artificial intelligence, memory is no longer as plentiful as it once seemed. Supply pressures and pricing shifts are forcing the industry to pay attention again.

Yet the response has been predictable: calls for more production, more supply, more resources. What’s largely missing is a serious push toward efficiency—toward doing more with less.

That pattern isn’t unique to technology.

There was a time when government budgeting followed a similar philosophy. Spending decisions were debated carefully, and trade-offs were taken seriously. Resources were finite, and priorities had to be set.

But over decades of economic dominance and access to global capital, that mindset faded. Deficits expanded, debt accumulated, and the assumption of endless financial capacity took hold.

Now, signs of strain are appearing. Borrowing costs have risen, and traditional sources of funding are becoming less reliable. The environment is changing.

Faced with these pressures, the response has largely mirrored what we see in software: a focus on acquiring more resources rather than using existing ones more effectively.

Proposals often center on increasing taxes or expanding revenue streams, while far less attention is given to reducing inefficiency or reassessing spending priorities. Structural issues—especially in the largest areas of expenditure—remain largely untouched.

The underlying problem isn’t just financial; it’s philosophical. Without a willingness to make difficult decisions, inefficiency persists.

Whether in technology or public finance, the principle is the same: abundance can mask poor discipline, but scarcity exposes it quickly.