If I remember correctly, back in the mid 90s, when digital cameras were getting a foothold on Main Street stores, the camera industry came together to agree on a top spec that no-one would step beyond.

Obviously such agreements are always for the benefit of businesses. The normal competition of competing firms would have been far more in the consumers favor.

I'm not sure how long this went on for, or how many intentional plateaus there were - but it _might_ be the same in this case too.

Bitman

tech

“Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs

beorange

I'm really disappointed by the HDD/SSD storage industry. Portable storage just suddenly stopped increasing and getting cheaper about 7-8 years ago. 4tb for 100 bucks and that's where it stopped. At previous speeds we would have easily been at 16tb by now. 

If they don't improve cost and size they shouldn't resort to selling their SSD products by worsening HDD products. 