In 1974, Bill Gates said he envisaged a ‘computer on every desk and in every home’. At that time, there were fewer than 500,000 computers, of any type, worldwide. By the turn of the millennium, the number of computers exceeded 500 million – still fewer than one device per European or American home. Yet, within a couple of decades, a typical family in the West had half a dozen computers at home – between smartphones, the family computer, a modern TV, and a smart speaker like an Amazon Alexa. A gadget-savvy household could easily break into the double digits.
