The author pretty much acknowledges that with the YouTuber example. And yeah, you can create a fairly long list of other reasons why people may want to upgrade.
But here's the thing: in the 1990s, people pretty much needed to upgrade regardless of what they were doing. Sure, you had a few holdouts. These were people who would continue to use Wordstar and had no interest in exchanging documents with people who use that newfangled Microsoft Word. These people were the exception rather than the rule, since most people wanted to be able to share their documents, get onto the internet, or any other number of things. Chances are, they also had multiple reasons to upgrade.
The situation is quite different today. You can get away without upgrading because most of the software, if not all of the software, you need will run just fine on an old PC. As for the other stuff, maybe you'll have one or two reasons to upgrade. Is that enough to justify it? The answer is going to depend upon the person, and the actual task they need to complete. For most people though, I would suggest that they don't feel the same compulsion to upgrade their computer.
But here's the thing: in the 1990s, people pretty much needed to upgrade regardless of what they were doing. Sure, you had a few holdouts. These were people who would continue to use Wordstar and had no interest in exchanging documents with people who use that newfangled Microsoft Word. These people were the exception rather than the rule, since most people wanted to be able to share their documents, get onto the internet, or any other number of things. Chances are, they also had multiple reasons to upgrade.
The situation is quite different today. You can get away without upgrading because most of the software, if not all of the software, you need will run just fine on an old PC. As for the other stuff, maybe you'll have one or two reasons to upgrade. Is that enough to justify it? The answer is going to depend upon the person, and the actual task they need to complete. For most people though, I would suggest that they don't feel the same compulsion to upgrade their computer.