Local LLMs aren't democratic anymore... the hardware barrier has gotten out of hand.

When we first started experimenting with local LLMs, it was a completely different story!

We were using gaming GPUs to tinker around. 8GB or 16GB of VRAM (which wasn't even a given for everyone) was the norm, and so many people could actually get their hands dirty and experiment. Let’s just forget for a second that long crypto-mining phase that bloated the market and caused shortages... but today? Today, if you don't have high-end hardware, experimenting has become way too difficult.

I know some of you will reply saying, "Hey, I'm using an RTX 3090 and I'm 100% ok with it," but at the risk of sounding unlikable, I honestly think that misses the point.
We are in 2026 now and a RTX 6000 Pro should be the baseline equivalent of what a 3090 was years ago! The market is completely detached from reality, and local inference is no longer as democratic as I thought it would become.
3090 was expensive but accessible at the time. RTX 6000 is 10-13k today! s*****t!!!

Oh, and one last thing: if you're planning to leave a comment hyping up Qwen 3.6, please don't. That model gets mentioned so much around here that I'm starting to think it's not even organic anymore. I suspect too many comments mentioning Qwen even when talking bout Gemma4 are manipulated!

I just really want to talk about how hardware access is no longer democratic. You need way too much money just to run something that, at the end of the day, is just a tool it doesn't automatically generate value for you.

Sorry for my English... I have this deeply rooted concept in my head, but I'm not sure if I'm fully conveying it!