The road ahead for technology

There's no going back.

Paul Mah

12 Apr 2025 — 2 min read

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Somruthai Keawjan

How will the shifting global landscape affect tech development and prices? Here's my take on the road ahead.

The past two weeks have brought an avalanche of rapid-fire news. You don’t need to read every story to sense what’s coming, however.

A lot we don't know

To be clear, there's a lot that we don't know yet.

Negotiations are ongoing.
The situation is still evolving.
Exceptions are being carved out.

One thing is for sure: This is a change in the world order in progress, and I highly doubt that things will ever go back to what they were.

I don't have room to fully explain my thinking here. But if you are keen, I plan to write about it in my weekly newsletter digest: www.techstories.co/updates

It goes out every Sunday morning.

For now, here's where I see things heading:

Tech devices might get cheaper...

The brunt of the tariffs is imposed on exports from the US and China, and it's now so high that it effectively severs all direct trade.

My thought is that prices could dip in the near term as brands scramble to sell existing stocks that they suddenly couldn't sell at the original destination.

This will be short-lived though.

Before getting pricier

We have long benefited from distributed manufacturing and economy of scale in manufacturing. In this world:

Discrete components are sourced globally based on availability, suitability and price.
In many cases, local ecosystems have also sprung up to further bring down prices.

As you can imagine, this will go out the window as supply chains stabilise around the new reality of widespread tariffs.

It is inevitable that prices will go up as cost increases.

Some industries will vanish

While the actions and some of the public comments coming from the US might appear irrational, the objective is actually pretty simple.

The US wants to bring manufacturing back, preferably high-value industries.