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Hard Drive Prices Hitting New Lows

Posted by Zonk on from the get-em'-while-they're-cheap dept.

Lucas123 writes "The average price of notebook hard drives tumbled to $53 in the third quarter of 2007, from $86 in the same period during the previous year, according to a survey by a market research firm. The price drop can be accredited to competition among six vendors, enormous demand for PCs and consumer electronics as well as evolving flash memory drives. 'Lower-capacity notebook drives showed smaller price drops, while newer high-capacity drives saw massive price drops ... Notebook drives with 320GB of storage will drop as a result of the addition of new features, while prices will stabilize on lower-capacity notebook storage devices like 80GB hard drives.'"

143 comments

  1. Enormous demand equals lower prices? by spun · · Score: 4, Funny

    Me fail economics? That's unpossible!

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Kopiok · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It could be that the enormous demand is making mass production more profitable, and also leading to cheaper manufacture methods.

    2. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Itchyeyes · · Score: 3, Informative

      Enormous demand only means increasing prices if supply stays limited. As the article notes, though competition to meet that demand is fierce between the vendors, meaning increasing supply with demand and increased economies of scale, hence lower prices.

    3. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      "Enormous demand equals lower prices?"

      Enormous demand + high competition = lower prices.

      Not unpossible.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    4. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Me fail economics? That's unpossible! the proper term is "econamiks"

      *geesh*... lurn inglish two!
    5. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For all those people saying how enormous demand encourages greater volumes which lowers prices... yes, that's true. But that's due to economies of scale, not due to higher demand. If there were no economies of scale, yet higher demand, then higher demand would not bring about lower prices; more likely, the exact opposite.

      The original poster, as far as I can tell, wasn't making a point about the economic principles of supply vs. demand per se, but rather that the original summary (article?) was abusing the terminology. Anyone who's spent any time shopping for any mass consumer good (such as computer hard drives) understands about economies of scale.

    6. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by JonathanR · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No. Economics doesn't work that way. What it is is enormous investment in captial equipment combined with the lag between initial investement and full scale procution eventually leads to market oversupply, which is why the prices are reducing. Prices are lowered, margins get tighter, so production is ramped up to compensate.

      Unless there is an opportunity to continue introducing 'premium' products (i.e. large capacity, or new features) using the same production technologies, then the margins get so tight that the weakest producer goes bust and/or is bought out by one of the stronger players.

    7. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by morcego · · Score: 4, Informative

      That is not "unpossible".

      Mass production is only viable with high demand. I'm not sure if you ever tried to negotiate shipment from a Taiwanese company. When they say 100, they are talking about 100 thousand units. 10K units is what they call a "small shipment". But I digress.

      Anyway, a good part of the cost of a product is related to development. Creating new technologies is expensive. Several other costs don't scale directly with the number of items. So the greater the production, the smaller the cost per unit.

      Add to that 5 other companies doing the same math, competing for the same market, and the prices will drop the higher the demand.

      Ever since Henry Ford, the simple law of "supply and demand" is not so simple anymore. More often than not, the higher the demand, the lower the prices.

      --
      morcego
    8. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If there were no demand, economies of scale would never come into play.

    9. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      Enormous demand + high competition = lower prices.

      Not always. Enormous demand + high competition + low supply == high prices...usually.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    10. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by bellorum · · Score: 1

      It might have something to do with the free market or capitalism. Just a guess.

    11. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      It depends on what the product in question is.

      In the short term high demand generally means higher prices. As the price rises demand decreases and supply may increase until supply and demand are once again balanced.

      In the long term for manufactured goods high demand means that design, factory setup and other fixed costs can be amortised over more units. In a competive market where supply is plentifull that will drive prices down.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    12. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by sootman · · Score: 1

      In a roundabout way, yes. Enormous demand leads to competition and economies of scale.

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    13. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by billcopc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I were manufacturing the cheapest junk ever build, I'd want to coax my suckers into buying big too, because the same client won't be coming back, ever!

      Seriously, we need to turn this garbage culture back around. Things are being designed to the very limit of human tolerance. I don't need gadgets that break every six months, I already own a f**king car.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    14. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Calinous · · Score: 1

      Memory manufacturers know this - oversupply (due to desire to increase market share, overestimation of demand and so on) leads to decreased prices. It happened before, it will happen again.
            Anyway, as the market sends more money in laptops than in desktops, increased production lessen the R&D costs per unit sold, and economies of scale allow lower prices also. High competition forces cost cutting measures (if I have a huge profit, I don't need to cut costs)

    15. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by mpe · · Score: 1

      Anyway, a good part of the cost of a product is related to development. Creating new technologies is expensive. Several other costs don't scale directly with the number of items. So the greater the production, the smaller the cost per unit.

      Also building a plant of manufacture something together getting it up and running can be a high initial expense.

    16. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by aztracker1 · · Score: 1

      Now, just explain that to the gas conspiracy theorists... different market, but the same rules tend to apply... Then again, I work from home 4 days a week...

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    17. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by aaronmcdaid · · Score: 1

      Enormous predicted demand leads to huge supply, leads to economies of scale, leads to lower prices. The important thing is the supply, not the demand as such.

    18. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Gospodin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ever since Henry Ford, the simple law of "supply and demand" is not so simple anymore. More often than not, the higher the demand, the lower the prices.

      That's a shame - you were on a roll, writing the truth, etc. Then you wrote the above and went right off a cliff.

      There's a lot of economic illiteracy in this thread, so let me clear up a couple of things. The law of supply and demand is basically a static law, making the implicit assumption that the supply and demand curves won't change (i.e. that supply and demand respond only to price, ignoring capital improvement, consumer needs, etc.). Since it's (nearly) always the case that, ignoring these other factors, higher prices result in lower demand and higher supply, the demand curve is downward sloping the the supply curve is upward sloping. Therefore, if the demand curve shifts up (which is what we mean when we say that "demand has increased"), the price will go up.

      What you're talking about is that suppliers are predicting this and building out capital to expand capacity. This shifts the supply curve up. When both the supply and demand curves rise, the price may rise, stay the same or fall, and volume always increases. Your contention that prices will fall is simply untrue - what is true is that since marginal unit cost of production (esp. of tech products) tends to fall over time, supply can sometimes be increased dramatically. This is all perfectly captured by the old, boring law of supply and demand.

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
    19. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Only in the presence of a cartel. In the absence of a cartel, the producer with the lowest overheads will expand to meet the size of the market, eliminating the 'high competition' part of the equation. At this point, you have a monopoly and the price rises to whatever the market will accept.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    20. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by spun · · Score: 1

      Well, that's true, but not the point. Enormous demand equals higher prices which means more sellers entering the market, i.e. high competition. And then prices fall. It's a system, and the chain of events leads to lower prices. But the direct effect of higher demand is higher prices, and it is simple economic illiteracy to claim otherwise.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    21. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by david.given · · Score: 1

      Your contention that prices will fall is simply untrue.

      But they do fall. Always. (Well, for mass produced goods.) The unit cost of mass producing an item falls as the number of items being produced rises --- this is what mass production is for. Therefore, if demand rises, then eventually (as you say) more production capability will be built and supply will increase --- but now they're being produced more efficiently, therefore they're available at a lower price. The causality chain is clear: if demand goes up, prices will eventually go down. There are a lot of intermediate stages, such as amortisation of the new production facilities, but that's what happens.

    22. Re:Enormous demand equals lower prices? by Gospodin · · Score: 1

      There are all sorts of events that can mess up your clear causality. What if labor costs fall relative to capital? What if the cost of a key input goes up? You're certainly correct that as a general rule increased production (not demand, though - you slightly misspoke on that point) leads to lower marginal unit costs of production. But this rule is not as universal as the law of supply and demand and certainly does nothing to invalidate it, as the GP was implying.

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
  2. Breaking news by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This news just in: technology advances and gets cheaper. Film at eleven.

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
    1. Re:Breaking news by Sloppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It sort of is news. My experience up to now is that bang-per-buck increases, but the price of a widget didn't necessarily change much, even if this year's widget was 50x bigger/faster/more_reliable/prettier than the widget of ten years ago.

      In 2000, I bought a video card (Matrox G400MAX, which I'm still using) for about $160, I think. What does a video card cost today? It's hard to say, since there's a lot of variety. But speaking very generally, a video card costs about the same.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    2. Re:Breaking news by timeOday · · Score: 1

      Actually notebook hard drive technology and pricing was relatively stagnant for years. I'm glad to see it advance again.

    3. Re:Breaking news by matt21811 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I studied this with hard disks and my data showed that the "sweet spot" hard disk (the drive with the best bang for buck) has actually steadily decreaased over time.
      You can see the chart at the bottom of this page:
      http://www.mattscomputertrends.com/harddrives.html
      look in the Annual Sweet Spot Price Trends section.

      Basically, my data disagrees with you. The average drive is getting cheaper.

    4. Re:Breaking news by HockeyPuck · · Score: 0
      Mod this parent down... not insightful.

      In 2000, I bought a video card (Matrox G400MAX, which I'm still using) for about $160, I think. What does a video card cost today? It's hard to say, since there's a lot of variety. But speaking very generally, a video card costs about the same. You bought a G400MAX in 2000 for $160, a card with the exact same capabilities 7 years later would certainly cost less today. Now what you may trying to say is that "a reference card" (which you G400MAX could be classified as, always costs "about $160", however the capabilities of "a reference card" increase year after year.
    5. Re:Breaking news by desmodromic · · Score: 1, Insightful


      um, hello? that's exactly what the "not insightful" parent was saying.

    6. Re:Breaking news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not what he's trying to say. That's what he *is* saying. From his post: "My experience up to now is that bang-per-buck increases, but the price of a widget didn't necessarily change much, even if this year's widget was 50x bigger/faster/more_reliable/prettier than the widget of ten years ago.".

    7. Re:Breaking news by Crazyswedishguy · · Score: 1

      Hmm, that's actually what he said. He stated that an average video card costs about the same now as it did in 2000, even if you get more bang for your buck now.

      His point is that it's surprising to him that a hard drive in a laptop costs considerably less today than last year. He would expect it to have much greater capacity, but cost around the same price as last year.

      --
      This space up for sale.
    8. Re:Breaking news by morcego · · Score: 1

      His premises are totally wrong.

      The "average" video card today is an IGP. So the cost for an average video card is much lower.

      Back in 2000 (and before), onboard video was not the rule. These days, most people use it. So the demand for off-board video cards has (and a market share) decreased. Today (guessing here), 1 out of 30 computers uses an off board card (consider business computers here, because you cry foul). Back in 2000, it was 1 in 4, if not more.

      Even if you think about offboard cards, the "average" card costs about US$ 90. I'm not talking about "gaming" cards, since the computer games area changed a lot in the past years. For reference, a GForce 7600GS card can be found for $74.99 ($64.99 after rebate). A GForce 8600GT, for $93.99 ($78.99 after rebate). Even thou (as stated on the previous paragraph) the market share of offboard cards has decreased, the absolute number of cards sold has increased. There were several advances on manufacturing processes too to take into account.

      So in both scenarios (onboard and offboard), an average card is much cheaper than $160.

      --
      morcego
    9. Re:Breaking news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?

      He said that bang-for-the-buck does increase, but the price remains relatively constant. That means that while the card you get 7 years later will be significantly more capable, it will still cost relatively the same amount. While it may not be true of all components, this phenomenon is still somewhat relevant since this story is about a component's price falling rather than it's capabilities improving. If this weren't the trend specifically with hard drives, this would indicate that manufacturers had hit some sort of barrier that prevented them from being able to improve the capabilities of their product and are being forced to lower prices on their product in order to continue to improve their offering.

      But since, as others have mentioned, the trend in hard drives is for price to come down, it's not quite as relevant. But that still doesn't change the fact that you didn't read his post closely enough before responding to it.

    10. Re:Breaking news by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not so sure about those trends. At least in the U.S., my experience has been that the average drive is slowly getting cheaper, but only if you pay full retail. What I'm seeing in my purchasing is a greater and greater reluctance by merchants to deeply discount hard drives. Where once we had $80-100 mail-in rebates, we now have $30 mail-in rebates or no rebates at all. The actual cost from what I'm seeing is staying roughly the same at the sweet spot. The only difference is that now I pay $100 at the register instead of paying $160 and getting a $60 rebate check after several months. Don't get me wrong---I much prefer not having to deal with the rebate B.S., but you can't ignore that comparing raw prices is something of an apples-to-oranges comparison.

      Your mileage may vary, of course. I haven't looked back at register receipts or anything, and it probably doesn't help that I've sworn off Western Digital after a long string of premature drive failures. The brand limitations and the departure of several manufacturers from the market makes any useful tracking a bit harder for me. That said, I'm not perceiving prices (at the sweet spot) as being significantly lower than they were five years ago.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    11. Re:Breaking news by danomac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In the long run it seems to be going down. But what about years 94, 95, and 98? We could be in store for another spike. Those spikes are not really predictable, nor is their duration.

      Did you guess I'm a pessimistic person? :o)

    12. Re:Breaking news by matt21811 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Australia doesnt have a retail culture of rebates. It never has had one. The price used is the lowest advertised price found in a reputable computer magazine. This means the prices are good representation of what people payed for the drive at the time. It's Apples to Apples.

    13. Re:Breaking news by Crazyswedishguy · · Score: 1
      I don't disagree with the extensive research you've done, but you've missed the point.

      (actually you did contradict yourself, when stating that

      the demand for off-board video cards has [...]decreased and then saying

      Even thou [...] the market share of offboard cards has decreased, the absolute number of cards sold has increased - market share has decreased, but demand hasn't if more cards are sold)

      The point is that in general gadgets get better, but year-over-year prices for a "standard" gadget don't change considerably (keep in mind inflation before you start quoting prices from the 80s!).
      A standard laptop is probably around $1,200, and that's about what it was 4 years ago. But my laptop today runs circles around my laptop 4 years ago.

      This is generally valid once a gadget has been "commoditized", not when it's a brand new really expensive technology.

      The reaction he had was because hard drives have dropped from $80 to $50. If hard drives were just getting better capacity as part of the general improvement of technology, you'd still expect them to stay approximately the same price. The fact that the price dropped by a huge percentage like that indicates something else is happening in the market, hence it's "surprising".

      Take a minute and ask yourself why they bothered to write an article about it...
      --
      This space up for sale.
    14. Re:Breaking news by morcego · · Score: 1

      Actually, you will notice that the phrase "and a market share" doesn't make sense. It was a typo. I intended to write "as a market share", meaning that the relative demand has decreased.

      I do understand your post, and I agree it is true for most things. Not (as TFA states) for hard disks. And neither (as I stated) for video cards.

      So yes, the concept you are presenting is valid. My point was not against TFA, but against the post using video cards as a valid example. It is not, and I showed.

      --
      morcego
    15. Re:Breaking news by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      You can clearly see you are wrong by just looking at prices in the aggregate (ie whole computer systems, ie all computer components put together - CPU, memory, HDD, GPU, display...). A top of the line laptop from 5 years ago was twice what a top of the line laptop costs today. Desktop computers have undergone the same or more.

      Of course, there will always be the early adopter/enthusiast/moron who wants to pay $600 for a graphics card. But if you are willing to settle for 2/3 the performance at 1/3 the price, mainstream PC hardware is a LOT cheaper than it used to be.

    16. Re:Breaking news by Calinous · · Score: 1

      Matrox was a bit of a speciality builder of video cards. When taking into account an G400Max, you should compare it with today's professional graphic cards (the cheaper models, yes, but professional - FireGL from ATI or Quadro from NVidia).

    17. Re:Breaking news by morcego · · Score: 1

      Don't tell it to me. Tell it to the guy who said it was the "average" video card of those days.

      --
      morcego
    18. Re:Breaking news by Tom+Womack · · Score: 1

      But most people don't need a video card nowadays, it's integrated in the north-bridge chip on the motherboard, and the difference between a board with video on the motherboard and without video is about twelve pounds, for video a lot better than the G400MAX can offer. The way to get things really cheap is to lose the PCB and interconnects entirely, and put them on a chip that you'd have had to manufacture anyway.

    19. Re:Breaking news by Krishnoid · · Score: 1
      In 2000, I bought a video card (Matrox G400MAX, which I'm still using) for about $160, I think. What does a video card cost today? It's hard to say, since there's a lot of variety. But speaking very generally, a video card costs about the same.

      I think the pricing here has to do not with economics, but with individual consumer psychology/marketing in an oligopolistic market (matrox, ati, nvidia, and maybe a couple others). There are findings or assumptions (which I can't quote) that indicate that $99, $199, $299 are special price points for consumer goods, perhaps even consumer electronics goods -- which is why (e.g.,) mid-range VCRs have been about $200-$300 regardless of change of feature set from year to year during their heyday. I'm sure someone can point to the specifics on this pricing model.

    20. Re:Breaking news by default+luser · · Score: 1

      You've got a nice set of data, but you fail to note one thing: your "sweet-spot" price graph is bottoming-out.

      You can't expect to see drive prices freefall forever. There is some minimum amount that drive makers have to charge to recoup the cost of building a sealed metal container, an electric motor, a high-precision metal/glass disk, and a high-precision GMR head and actuator. The cost of aluminimum and rare earth magnets all have minimums, and those are about as low as they'll ever get.

      In the past, drives have seen huge increases in size/price ratio because of big technological improvements, but now we're hitting the end of that rope. Now that capacity has hit a wall, we're left with just minor price cuts (for example, reduced material usage: have you felt how LIGHT modern hard disks are?), plus the usual reduction in cost for drive electronics. There's not much they can do to trim the minimum price anymore.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    21. Re:Breaking news by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      Cheaper than a C64 in 1983? ;-)

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    22. Re:Breaking news by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      A 1983 MSRP of $595 is almost $2000 in 2007 dollars... so, yes! ;-P

  3. In other news by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Stock market continues to hit new highs.

    Gravity attracts.

    Clinton remains unelectable.

    1. Re:In other news by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clinton remains unelectable. Hey, now, that Lewinsky chick said his election was just fine!
      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    2. Re:In other news by weighn · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Clinton remains unelectable. Hey, now, that Lewinsky chick said his election was just fine! yeah, Voteagra will have that effect
      --
      Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
    3. Re:In other news by noidentity · · Score: 1

      Hey, now, that Lewinsky chick said his election was just fine!

      I didn't know she was Asian.

    4. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Yeah, cock-asian!

    5. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you A.C. for the funniest thing I've read in weeks -- bad as it was!

    6. Re:In other news by AK+Marc · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Clinton remains unelectable.

      Which Clinton, the one that was elected to president twice, or the one that is currently serving in the elected office of Senator? Either way, the "unelectable" has been elected. Unless you meant Chelsea Clinton.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    7. Re:In other news by jcr · · Score: 1

      Stock market continues to hit new highs.

      Not today, it didn't. :-(

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    8. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The one that will ensure a Republican victory in '08, so we have 4-8 more years of more of the same BS.

      Maybe the next president will make the mistake of starting a draft, which will urge people to actually take a risk with more than their online persona, and get involved with the government instead of watching C-SPAN and whining about how bad Iraq is on their emo blog.

    9. Re:In other news by Bluesman · · Score: 1

      It just struck me how shocking the Lewinsky scandal news must have been to native speakers of Asian languages.

      --
      If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
    10. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would that be the Hilary Clinton who recently spouted in a
      interview on CNN that "when she becomes president again'?

  4. When News Breaks... by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

    Coming Summer 2008:

    Roger Moore is a technology analyst caught up in a web of deceit and decreasing prices in the new suspense thriller: Moore's Law!

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  5. well, duh ... ? by weighn · · Score: 1

    Lower-[end technology] showed smaller price drops, while [higher-end technology] saw massive price drops whodathunkit?
    --
    Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
  6. His election... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Watching news in engrish?

  7. New production materials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're making the new platters out of US currency.

  8. Cheap enough to use powers of two? by Besna · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Something like 512GB makes it obvious that's 512GiB. And I obviously want 512GiB in my laptop.

  9. Followed by the low budget porn flick... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    web 2.0

  10. This IS news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Obviously things get better and cheaper as time goes on - but you spend the same. One year you get a 20GB drive for $100, the next year you get a 40GB for $100, the next year 80GB for $100, etc. What's happening now is that people are getting bigger drives for much cheaper than the previous year.

    1. Re:This IS news by tppublic · · Score: 1
      What's happening now is that people are getting bigger drives for much cheaper than the previous year.

      The article is making a statement on $/drive. You're referring to $/bit. The problem is that $/drive is also impacted by bit/drive.

      Thus, your case is not necessarily what the report says, since it's only measuring the average drive price, and not the price per bit.

      The scenario could just as easily be:

      One year you get a 20GB drive for $100, the next year you get a 40GB for $100, the next year 40GB for $50, since you can't justify the need for an 80GB drive, because you didn't fill the 40GB drive on the old laptop.

      There isn't enough data in the article to determine the magnitude of the two effects ($/bit and bit/drive), but it's surely a combination of the two.

    2. Re:This IS news by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 1

      That's one idea that the size of a $100 dive falls. That means people want/need a larger drive but can only spend $100.

      What's happened now is that the $100 drive has gotten larger than people need so finally that can drop down to the $80 drive

  11. Also, Loss Leaders by Glowing+Fish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am assuming that a lot of this comes from pressures from customers, or retail stores, to keep prices down. At least on flashy equipment that customers will go for. I've noticed that RAM and hard drive prices are getting ridiculously cheap.

    Some things, however, seem to be way overpriced. Go to bestbuy.com (for example), and do a search for items like parallel, power, USB, VGA or DVI cables. A parallel cable, for example (a fancy gold one, true) costs $29. A six foot USB cable costs $35. Even a power cable costs $12.

    Hard drives have lots of moving parts, and chips and electronics. Cables are, more or less, lengths of wire, with probably around 50 cents worth of copper in most of them. I am assuming that stores are keeping down prices on flashy items so they can then get customers to pay way too much for utility items.

    --
    Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
    1. Re:Also, Loss Leaders by TrekkieGod · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Some things, however, seem to be way overpriced. Go to bestbuy.com (for example)

      Well, you picked a place that sells way overpriced stuff. Especially cables. People keep telling me how HDMI cables cost $100, and if you're trying to buy them at Best Buy, you do find them at that price (although, I'm now finding "cheaper" cables. $49.99 is the cheapest I've found there. It says it's an "xbox hdmi cable", I assume microsoft doesn't have a proprietary plug and that's just a regular hdmi cable. If it's not a regular hdmi cable, then the cheapest is a $79.99 4' cable instead. On the other hand, if you do a simple google search, you'll easily find 6' cables for $6.99. Same for most other cables.

      The lesson...stuff is getting cheaper, but you need to shop around before you buy. These days, with the convenience of the 'net, you have no excuse not to.

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

    2. Re:Also, Loss Leaders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you standardly buy your cables at bestbuy, you are a fricking moron.

      They have insanely overpriced cables. Go to newegg.com or some other online retailer and get them for 1/10 the price.

      The only time you should buy them from best buy is if it's an emergency and you need it NOW. Then you drive to the brick&mortor store and buy them only if there aren't any other more reasonable computer stores in your local area.

    3. Re:Also, Loss Leaders by revengebomber · · Score: 1

      Cables are, more or less, lengths of wire, with probably around 50 cents worth of copper in most of them. But lengths of wire are essential to anything, right up to starships! Here, let me show you some of the various lengths of wire I used to build mine...
      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    4. Re:Also, Loss Leaders by edmudama · · Score: 1

      I've used monoprice.com for a lot of my HD cabling, they all seem to be of excellent quality, and order processing is fast.

      --
      More data, damnit!
    5. Re:Also, Loss Leaders by Glowing+Fish · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you misunderstood my point, because your point is the exact same as mine.

      This is my point exactly, that cables and whatnot are cheap, if you shop well. I know this, I work in a store that sells USB cables for a dollar and power cables for 25 cents.

      Which is why, see, I made a point about "loss leaders". Those are underpriced items (sometimes above cost, sometimes at, sometimes below) that retailers use to get customers into a store so that they will pick up other items that are being sold at very high profit.

      And while I know many people on here are smart enough to shop around, this technique must work often enough that stores make money doing it.

      --
      Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
    6. Re:Also, Loss Leaders by bratwiz · · Score: 1


      If you buy _anything_ at Best Buy-- nay, strike that-- if you even WALK INTO a Best Buy-- you're a fricken moron.

  12. iPod question by ThirdPrize · · Score: 1

    Any idea what the largest hard drive you can get into an 80Gb iPod Video case is? Would it work out cheaper than getting a new higher capacity iPod?

    --
    I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
    1. Re:iPod question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      160GB drives exist, but I've heard it's hard to find them as Apple has bought most of them for their 160GB ipods. Maybe not cheaper but definitely easier to just buy the 160GB ipod.

    2. Re:iPod question by xouumalperxe · · Score: 1

      Trouble is that iPods are made with 1.5" drives, which are nowhere near as popular as 2.5" or 3.5" drives, so much harder to actually get your hands on. Also, I have no clue what sort of price you'll have to pay for the one unit you want for the iPod case, as most of the 1.5" market is in the small device sector (mostly video/music players, I'd wager), and not really aimed at direct sales to the public.

    3. Re:iPod question by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Unless they've shrunk them recently, the use 1.8" drives, not 1.5". I am somewhat amazed by the density of these drives; you can get an iPod with the same capacity 1.8" drive as the 2.5" drive in my MacBook Pro. When I bought the PowerBook that it replaced, the largest 1.8" drivers were a quarter of the capacity of the PowerBook's drive. I'm quite surprised we don't see them in subnotebooks.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  13. Base conversion problem? by dfsmith · · Score: 1

    Anyone else notice that 0x53 == 83. Maybe the price only dropped $3 and they're taking no chances now that G no longer means "giga".

    1. Re:Base conversion problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone else notice that 0x53 == 83. Maybe the price only dropped $3 and they're taking no chances now that G no longer means "giga". Or maybe it's a base 34 system and the price more than doubled to $173...

      or more likely parent is just WAY off topic.
  14. At least I'll have porn. by Usekh · · Score: 1

    Well with petrol prices going up I won't be able to get anywhere And with food prices soaring I won't have the energy anyway But at least I will have plenty of space to store my porn for those long lonely nights at home

  15. Whats after Terabyte? by headkase · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have exactly one terabyte of HD space - that much was unimaginable to me only a few short years ago. Remember when Windows 95 only used somewhere around the neighborhood of 50MB? With todays OS storage requirements sitting around one GB it's not unimaginable anymore that someday the OS alone will be a terabyte (although I can't imagine what it would contain) and overall hard drives will be truly unimaginable sizes by todays standards.

    --
    Shh.
    1. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure. But, I imagine a lifetime of porn on a watch.

    2. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Chabil+Ha' · · Score: 1

      I can't imagine what it would contain Lot's of useless shiny.
      --
      We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
    3. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by guderian68 · · Score: 1

      Exabyte is 1000 terabytes, or 10^18 bytes.

    4. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Tribbin · · Score: 1

      There are distribution creators pushing to many different directions. One of them is keeping it small. I think the growth of the 'operating system' will more or less flatten out.

      http://damnsmalllinux.org/

      --
      If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
    5. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by epylar · · Score: 1

      An exabyte is 1,000,000 terabytes. (An exbibyte is 1,048,576 tebibytes.)

    6. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by danomac · · Score: 1

      Remember when Windows 95 only used somewhere around the neighborhood of 50MB? With todays OS storage requirements sitting around one GB...

      I don't know when you last looked at OS requirements being around 1GB, unless you meant 1GB of RAM. Sure, I can get linux installed on a 3GB hard drive (albeit really cramped), but Windows? Not a chance... The mainstream uses XP (for now) and a clean install with patches sits around 4GB. A bare-bones install on Vista on my laptop is almost 9GB. I don't know exactly what's in that space, but it's getting ridiculous... even with a selection of apps installed on linux it'd be around the size of a default Windows XP install.
    7. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by syukton · · Score: 1

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

      Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte, Exabyte, Zettabyte, Yottabyte.

      Interesting to note that from Terabyte onwards aren't in the default word dictionary for Firefox v2.0.0.9.

      Anyhow, what would be in a futuristic one-terabyte OS? Well, name something your operating system does now and imagine how it could be better. Instead of a calendar, an entire multimedia almanac. Instead of a system clock, a functional world (or possibly even off-world/world-neutral) clock. Text-to-speech and speech-to-text functionality for every major planetary language in a variety of voices, intonations, accents, ages, etc. Building upon the usual game of 20 questions which has already been packaged as a toy that can guess what you're thinking a significant amount of the time, add a Q&A service that can answer all kinds of questions "Does it rain more each year in Chicago or Los Angeles?" "What industries is the government currently subsidizing? What about in Canada? China?" and so on. You'd probably have an entire copy of wikipedia (or something comparable) on your local machine. Keep in mind that at the time when we have an operating system 1 terabyte in size, we'll probably also have much faster internet connections, larger higher-resolution monitors, and so on. You could get incremental updates to the monstrous database that backs the AI engine that answers these sorts of questions (and the almanac mentioned before).

      Consider also that some of the best monitors out there have a maximum resolution of 2560x1900 (Dell/Apple 30" flat panels). That's today. What about when this future date comes? What will visual imaging (ie, photographic) technology bring us? What if every picture on wikipedia were of high enough quality to count the freckles on someone's face or the hairs on an animal's body? That surely would add to the size of the database. The multimedia almanac I mention could have incredibly high-resolution photographs and videos. As it stands today, multimedia are the end-user's biggest storage hogs. This also assumes we're still using two-dimensional displays by that time and not 3-d volumetric displays, which would increase the storage demands of multimedia significantly.

      Also, what is an operating system? Here's the (sizable, for a Slashdot comment) introduction from the Wikipedia article on the "Operating system" topic: "An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking and managing file systems. Most operating systems come with an application that provides a user interface for managing the operating system, such as a command line interpreter or graphical user interface. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software."

      Let's start here: "Software that manages the sharing of resources and provides programmers with an interface to access those resources." Who is a programmer today? Somebody sitting in an office, manipulating arcane bits and bytes into something everyone can use. What if, in the future, the operating system provided this functionality to the end-user in a way they could utilize? To draw a parallel: did the computer on ST:TNG have more than an operating system? You ask it to do something, and it does it, no applications necessary. Being able to do anything you wanted with any piece of information was something that specific computer was

      --
      Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
    8. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by IANAAC · · Score: 1

      The mainstream uses XP (for now) and a clean install with patches sits around 4GB.

      I don't believe this to be true. I have a fully updated XP install, albeit in VMWare, that takes just under 4 Gig with full Office 2003, as well as several other third party apps.

    9. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a petabyte is 1024 terabytes

      next is exabyte, zettabyte, yottabyte

      you can probably look it up on the internet
      http://simple.be/tech/reference/bit

    10. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by ianare · · Score: 1

      I certainly hope so. How shiny do you need your icons?

    11. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unimaginable? You must not have a very good imagination. My friends and I, in computer club 15 years ago, were talking about TB hard drives and what we would use them for. (mostly for world simulations and stuff like that)

    12. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Obsidian+Butterfly · · Score: 1

      I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    13. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, not everyone can suck cock and get change back, if you know what I mean.

    14. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      IIRC DSL is woody based. If that is still the case then unless they have been doing a lot of work themselves the software is probablly littered with security holes. Maybe acceptable for a livecd but not for a main desktop OS.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    15. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      Nope, a exabyte is 1,048,576 terabytes. These terms were defined at the begining of the computing age, and no ammount of emo whining is gonna let them be redefined to something different. Several hard drive manufacturers just lost a class action lawsuit using the logic you just posted.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    16. Re:Whats after Terabyte? by epylar · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you're right.. I wasn't trying to make a distinction between the powers of 2 and powers of 10 in that post, simply to correct a roughly 1000-fold mistake in a parent post.

      I've grown up thinking 'kilobyte = 1024 bytes, megabyte = 1024 kilobytes', etc, FWIW.

      Perhaps "kilo byte" should mean 1000 bytes and "kilobyte" should mean 1024 bytes. It depends on whether kilo is being used to mean the SI prefix of 1000... insanity.

      An interesting post on the whole mess: http://meta.ath0.com/2005/02/23/a-plea-for-sanity/

  16. extra^2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    xStRA, xStRA: Clinton's cock is *not* a Kool-Aid dispenser, I repeat, no Kool-Aid for suqqage found down there.

  17. Re:Not bad by wilsonng · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just found out that more than half of the things in my computer are really 'garbage'. Maybe I should not be keeping it in the first place. it just made looking for the right things so hard. But then storage is so cheap.... that sometimes in the same hard drive, I could find myself having three copies of the same data.

    --
    Wilson Ng What matters is what you can, and cannot do.... Captain Jack Sparrow
  18. 80GB prices WILL go down significantly by switcha · · Score: 3, Funny
    How do i know 80 GB prices are sure to drop drastically?

    I just bought one.

    --
    You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
  19. time for economics 101, zonk by blueZ3 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Higi demand doesn't drive prices down. Competition might be a factor, as might economies of scale. Demand, not so much

    --
    Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
    1. Re:time for economics 101, zonk by Locklin · · Score: 1

      You're forgetting that with most technology, R&D is much more expensive than production.Thus, the more you sell, the cheaper the overhead (per unit).

      --
      "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
    2. Re:time for economics 101, zonk by TheDugong · · Score: 1

      So competition and economies of scale can exist without demand?

  20. Buy Cables Elsewhere by Kenshin · · Score: 1

    Last month I bought a printer at Future Shop. It was a great deal. Then they wanted $30 for a 6' USB cable. I said, "Thanks, but I don't need one."

    I took the printer, and walked across the street to a dumpy local computer place. I bought a 10' USB cable from them for $5, and since they saw me coming from Future Shop they laughed (knowing the situation) and knocked the tax off too.

    NEVER, EVER buy cables from Future Shop, Best Buy, or any other place like that.

    --

    Does it make you happy you're so strange?

    1. Re:Buy Cables Elsewhere by Belial6 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Take a walk into a 99 cent store sometime. Most of them now carry USB and Firewire cables at... You guessed it... 99 Cents. It is hard to believe that people are spending upward of $20 for a cable that obviously can be sold for $1 at a profit.

    2. Re:Buy Cables Elsewhere by geekoid · · Score: 1

      You do need to look at quality..no I am not talking about some magical the bits will sound better quality, I am talking about the connectors and the connections to them, as well as the connector shielding.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    3. Re:Buy Cables Elsewhere by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Which is why you should keep paying $30 for cables. I have never had a problem with the $1 cables, so I keep the other $29 for something else. Your experiences may be different, but your warning sounds like a lot of FUD. Of course it is worries like yours that keeps people paying $30 for a USB cable.

    4. Re:Buy Cables Elsewhere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can find crappy cables for cheap and crappy cables for a fortune, but if you want quality cables, you aren't going to get them cheap. Maybe if 100 insertion are enough for you, the dollar store is fine. If a cable fails, you can try 15 of them and still save a bunch. However, if up time is critical or you work in a harsh environment or stress you equipment is some other way, paying for quality can save you a fortune. I've never had a cheap USB cable fail me, but I've spent of fortunes in man hours at remote locations due to failed SCSI and ethernet cables before I started searching out the best quality. Proper molding and shielding will cost you more upfront, but not as much as you'd expect, and can save you far far more. If you just do computer stuff as a hobby, I can see how it would seem different. If the dollar store works for you, don't change, but understand that you're advice isn't correct for many people here.

    5. Re:Buy Cables Elsewhere by whoop · · Score: 1

      I recently bought a car that had a standard 1/8-inch jack to plug any audio device in to. I figure, what the heck, I'll stop in and pick up a cheap cable for it. I happened to be in the neighborhood of a Circuit City, so that was my first stop. After looking for quite some time, I finally found an "Ipod Audio Cable," for $19.99. It wasn't even made by Apple, but it had those four magic letters that add to the price. Cables have a HUGE markup in these big chain stores.

      I drove an extra few minutes to a computer shop and got one for $3.99.

  21. MS-OS = 75% of disk by peter303 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dont worry, when you up grade tp 200GB, the Vista service pack will consume 150GB.

  22. Enormous sloppiness by fm6 · · Score: 1

    And in fact TFA doesn't say that. It does say that PC demand is way up, but doesn't draw a connection between that and falling disk prices.

    There is a connection, but it's the other way: cheaper drives means cheaper PCs mean more people buy PCs.

  23. Too bad by ShawnCplus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well it looks like it now costs more to drive to the store than it actually does to buy the hard drive.

    --
    Excuse me while I gather the virgin sacrifice and assemble the pentagram required to solve your problem
  24. Great for a portable music collection by bulletman · · Score: 1

    I find these notebook hard drives to be great for a portable music collection. I just copy my home iTunes folder to a notebook drive in a USB enclosure, and take it to work. I can't put songs on my work hard drive (backing up costs money), but no problem if I take the hard drive with me. I also rip exclusively in lossless formats.

    Stephen

  25. Someone should tell Microsoft by angle_slam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft is selling the 120 GB hard drive for the Xbox 360 for $180. For the same price, you could get a 750 GB hard drive for your PC. Or, you could buy a 160 GB hard drive for $50.

    1. Re:Someone should tell Microsoft by Emetophobe · · Score: 1

      Microsoft is selling the 120 GB hard drive for the Xbox 360 for $180. For the same price, you could get a 750 GB hard drive for your PC. Or, you could buy a 160 GB hard drive for $50.

      Your numbers are a bit off, since the Xbox 360 (and the Playstation 3) uses a 2.5" notebook drive, not a 3.5" desktop drive. For $180, you could get a 250GB notebook drive (not a 750GB desktop drive). Other than that, you're still right about Microsoft overcharging people for a 120GB drive.

      From a quick look at newegg:
      Western Digital 2.5" 120GB drive costs $84.99.
      Fujitsu 2.5" 120GB drive costs $69.99.

  26. educating the masses. by Topherbyte · · Score: 0

    Yes, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I must vent some indignation.

    HEY YOU! Non-technical consumer! Listen up!

    When you read a hard drive review, by the manufacturer or a third party, and it says something like "It can hit transfer rates of up to 3Gb/s" you are being deceived. Maximum bus speed does NOT equate to sustained transfer speed from platter-to-buffer, which is what counts.

    That is all.

  27. Falling hard drive prices by dsgrntlxmply · · Score: 1
    I invited an OEM sales rep. for a disk manufacturer to give a presentation a few years ago. He told of their lights-out automated factory. It would have been cool to see pictures, but it is difficult to take pictures of a lights-out factory.

    Examining the price/capacity trendline on his slides, I projected that by perhaps 2009, they would be paying customers to take the drives.

    This leads to one of three possible conclusions:

    1) Disk drives contain something foul that someone is willing to pay to be rid of

    or

    2) The Bush administration subsidizes the disk drive industry (and its greatest consumption motivators: the porn and ripped music distribution industries) to make certain that new drives, all of which contain Super Secret Surveillance technology, are widely deployed

    or

    2) Disk drives are made of anti-petroleum.

  28. 80GB is "lower capacity" now? by bh_doc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does anyone else find it amazing that we are at a time where 80 gigabytes can be called a "lower capacity" hard drive without laughing? I remember a time when simply *adding* a hard drive to your machine was a significant upgrade, and I'm only 24.

    1. Re:80GB is "lower capacity" now? by Da+Web+Guru · · Score: 1

      I have a pair of 120GB drives and a 200GB drive just sitting around because they are *too small* to use anywhere else (all of the other drives I use in my other computers are at least 320GB). I remember being excited to even be able to hold that much data in my hand...

      --

      --guru

    2. Re:80GB is "lower capacity" now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I fondly remember my deeply coveted 60MB 2.5" drive I added to my Amiga A1200. I just recently put a 160GB drive in my computer, and it I didn't get a bigger drive because I'm cheap.

    3. Re:80GB is "lower capacity" now? by ares284 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I'm 23 and I remember getting my first 1GB drive when I was a kid and laughing evily at how many games that new drive would hold. I never thought I would need anything more. Now, I have one 250GB drive, two 120GB drives, and several 80GB drives completely full. I'm saving up for a 2TB NAS device. :-P

    4. Re:80GB is "lower capacity" now? by bratwiz · · Score: 1


      I fondly remember adding an additional 2K to my Altair (for a whopping 4K total !!)

  29. That's great by Kanasta · · Score: 1

    but when will 2.5" enclosures support more than the 120G the current roof seems to be at? Esp those digimate devices seem to support only 80G!

  30. Streaming by meehawl · · Score: 1

    I just copy my home iTunes folder to a notebook drive in a USB enclosure, and take it to work.

    Carrying disks?!? I just use Media Center to stream my audio and video over the internet from my server to whatever clients I like. I've used Media Center because of its single-click client-specific transcoding and its great tagging/smartlists. However, of late, I've been increasingly using VLC and Orb to stream more media to my phone. Anyway, the point is, carrying a physical disk is a postmodern sneakernet that should be left in the dustbin of history as soon as possible.

    --

    Da Blog
    1. Re:Streaming by mdwh2 · · Score: 1

      Well, not all workplaces are going to be happy about downloading music on the Internet all day...

      Sneakernet was bad when it meant you had to split files up onto 100 floppies that were each slow to read and write. I think it's fine when we can carry hundreds of GBs on a fast medium (especially one that's still much faster than Internet connections).

  31. Actually... by TrekkieGod · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you misunderstood my point, because your point is the exact same as mine.

    Sorry, I did understand your point, but got stuck on the cable thing and didn't finish the argument. My fault.

    The point I was trying to make was that bestbuy just sells overpriced stuff. Period. They're not selling hard drives as loss leaders to get people to buy their other stuff. Their hard drives (cheapest internal 500gb $139.99) are also overpriced compared to other places ($99.99, same specs)

    They're especially bad with things that are supposed to be extremely cheap, like cables, but nothing is really cheap there. Actually, you can buy dvd's for decent prices at best buy. That's just about the only thing I buy there unless I'm in some type of hurry and can't wait for the mail delivery time.

    Oh, and before I mess up this post as well, no, newegg isn't selling their hard drives as loss leaders for cables either. You can search their site for HDMI cables and see the 10' $6.99 one and 5' power cable for $3.49. I really like newegg, most of their prices are quite reasonable, and they ship things very quickly.

    --

    Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

  32. "Accredited"? by uhlume · · Score: 1

    Really? What body accredited these price drops, and for what where they accredited?

    --
    SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
  33. Still Too High by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    750GB drives, at $154, are still 17% higher per GB than 500GB drives at $88, even though there are 1TB drives.

    When the 750s are within a few percent of the 500s, I'll be excited again. And screaming for 1TB for under $160, what I was paying for 250GB last year.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  34. Free market? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When seeing 2000% profit for items like these I somehow have to question if 'free market' really guarantees low prices for the consumers as many like to claim. And in the case of cables it is really *free*, as in 'not regulated by a government or cartel'. I mean think about it: we got a plastic cable on one side and a highly sophisticated piece of equipment on the other (such as a hard disk or CPU) - and both have virtually the same price tag - and people pay it...

    1. Re:Free market? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A free market depends on an informed buyer. Any situation in which the seller has more information than the buyer is not a true free market (as such, free markets are about as common as invisible pink unicorns).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  35. Why does the oil price not affect hard drives? by master_p · · Score: 1

    Almost everything else has gone up in price the last few months, and the excuse is the price of oil. But hard disks have lots of parts that are indirect products of oil, so someone would expect that the prices would not be decreased so easily.

  36. ..in Roviet Sussia.. by newr00tic · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure. But, I imagine a lifetime of porn on a watch. In Soviet Russia, porn watches *you*.
    --
    A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
  37. Thank you. by spun · · Score: 1

    I knew there would be a lot of people trying to explain why higher demand would equal lower prices, but I also knew there would be people like you, who actually understand economics, who would set them straight.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  38. Being born causes death by spun · · Score: 1

    I must have missed the place in the article where the author makes the claim that enormous demand equals lower prices. Here I was thinking that it was the enormous supply. Brought on by competition, yes, which was brought on by the demand, yes, but that's a whole chain of cause and effect.

    To say that enormous demand means lower prices is about as meaningful as saying that being born causes death.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  39. Candy bars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's "candybar inflation" in reverse. In candy the price of the bar stays the same but the product gets smaller. Hard drives get bigger but the price stays the same.

  40. 3G by meehawl · · Score: 1

    not all workplaces are going to be happy about downloading music on the Internet all day

    Oh, I route through my tethered phone to avoid any workplace/college firewalls or snoops without having to SSH everything and go through anonymous DNS. On a bad day the Sprint/Verizon EVDo gets around 800Kbps. On a good this this can go up to 1.5 Mbps. It's actually enough to do good DIV/H.264 video at decent framerates, and more than enough for video. $30/month for unlimited streaming including voice is a steal.

    --

    Da Blog
  41. how about this: by geekoid · · Score: 1

    Stock market continues to hit new highs in lows.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect