[seiferteric]

But energy efficiency is improving also.

[entropicdrifter]

Hardware energy efficiency is, but software has been getting less efficient for decades, at least on average.

[Aurornis]

Consumer PCs and laptops spend most of their time idle.

Idle power usage is what matters.

The 15 seconds it takes to launch Discord and install updates isn't going to be driving the overall efficiency of your PC.

[retSava]

It's like with cars - better performing drive trains (et al) is used to increase the power envelope instead of lowering fuel consumption, since that leads to more sales allegedly.

[wat10000]

It really isn't. I have a pocket-sized device that would utterly thrash a supercomputer from a couple of decades ago, and it goes a day or two on a 20Wh battery. Going full blast it'll consume maybe 25-30W, which is less than the idle power consumption of far less powerful devices from not all that long ago.

Incidentally, cars are also a lot more fuel efficient these days than they used to be.

[garbawarb]

Which makes it easier to consume more.