The race never stopped. You buy an Apple II. It works for a while. Then everyone is running Lotus 1-2-3 so you gotta get an expensive 386. Now Windows 3.1 and 95 is the standard, and you need Internet too so you buy a modem and a Pentium machine for a couple grand. It's okay for a while. Then downloads take longer and longer, and your computer gets slower again, so you upgrade to 6mbps cable internet and an AMD athlon/Pentium 4, and Windows XP. It's okay for a while. But then games and software no longer fit on a CD ROM. They're using DVDs, and the space they take up on your HD is approaching tens of GB. Suddenly you need to upgrade to 25mbps internet and a terabyte drive to keep up with the space requirements and updates/service packs. You're on a multi core CPU now because nobody fucking optimizes shit anymore and assumes you have the horsepower to deal with it. Then they get rid of physical media altogether. Now you're stuck downloading a fucking several hundred gigabyte game or piece of software on a 100+mbps connection to do largely the same shit we did on that Apple II in 1980. Your system RAM alone can now hold all software ever made for that Apple II with plenty room to spare.
I get why a lot of retirees in the industry want to burn their computers and take up farming.