[VLM]

Having lived thru the era, admittedly in the USA not UK, the article clearly was not written by a gen-xer because "effectively cut children from lower-income households off from the computer revolution" is complete nonsense. If anything the tradition of constructing computers to operate for a decade was still in play while rapid technological advancement meant kids could have somewhat used computers pretty much free for the asking. This continued well into the 90s where it seems every linux install story began with "first obtain a free discarded computer" to install on. Now a days you have to spend $75 on a new pi and its required accessories, but in the "old days" you learned for free on a used machine.

I suppose no matter how bad it is for the environment, filling the worlds landfills with e-waste is at least good for the economy.