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On Oct 7, 10:37*pm, Bobs <sandyvag...@thebeach.com> wrote:
> I remember just a few years back a 1gb flash was about 50 bucks. A year
> before that and they were about $80. Now you can get them for $9. I just
> got hold of a perfectly fine 8gb drive for $26.
>
> What has changed recently to drive the prices down?

Economies of scale?

Production of flash memory would have massively ramped up to cater for
the demand from cell phones, media player and digital cameras in
recent years. Flash drives by themselves would never have created that
much demand and the investment in producing flash memory would have
happened slower.

--
Cheers
Anton

On 2008-10-07, ~misfit~ <> wrote:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs "AD." typed:
>> On Oct 7, 10:37 pm, Bobs <sandyvag...@thebeach.com> wrote:
>>> I remember just a few years back a 1gb flash was about 50 bucks. A
>>> year before that and they were about $80. Now you can get them for
>>> $9. I just got hold of a perfectly fine 8gb drive for $26.
>>>
>>> What has changed recently to drive the prices down?
>>
>> Economies of scale?
>>
>> Production of flash memory would have massively ramped up to cater for
>> the demand from cell phones, media player and digital cameras in
>> recent years. Flash drives by themselves would never have created that
>> much demand and the investment in producing flash memory would have
>> happened slower.
>
> Yeah, if that were the case then one would think that the speed of the now
> cheaper devices would have remained the same or got better. This is clearly
> not the case with these cheap flash drives that are on the market.
>
> Clearly there are other factors at work here. I'm not disputing that
> economies of scale will reduce prices, just that it's not the only, or in
> fact dominant reason for the cheap USB devices available.
>
New technology is walking towards the playing field. You know, smaller and
stores more. I read about it somewhere, sorry but have forgotten what it is
called, or where I read it. The salt is over there

Anyhow, new technology helps to drive down the price of the old/existing
stuff. Or in the case of HD size matters ;-