<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Someone</author><text>I don’t think it’s fair to expect hard drive capacity&amp;#x2F;$ to grow exponentially forever.&lt;p&gt;Certainly for consumer hard drives, there’s a cost of getting the drive to the customer (transport, shop rent, employee salaries, etc) which is, at best, fixed.&lt;p&gt;If manufacturing costs drop to zero, price will approach that fixed cost (plus any markup sellers manage to extract, for example by marketing their drives as better&amp;#x2F;more hip&amp;#x2F;etc.)</text><parent_chain><item><author>dsr_</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s an article from 2011 doing Moore&amp;#x27;s Law extrapolation of RAM and disk prices: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;antranik.org&amp;#x2F;using-moores-law-to-predict-future-memory-trends&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;antranik.org&amp;#x2F;using-moores-law-to-predict-future-memo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;RAM, 2011: 
&amp;quot;A single 8GB stick of RAM is about $80 right now. In 2021, you’d be able to buy a single stick of RAM that contains 64GB for the same price.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Disks, 2011:
&amp;quot;The price of a 1-terabyte hard drive is $80 now...&lt;p&gt;In 2013, a 2TB drive will be $80.&lt;p&gt;In 2015, a 4TB drive will be $80.&lt;p&gt;After that the doubling rate may lengthen to 3 years instead of 2 years so..&lt;p&gt;In 2018, an 8TB drive will be $80.  And finally in 2021, for $80, you’d be able to buy a 16 terabyte hard drive&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>dragosmocrii</author><text>Can you elaborate on the memory pricing?</text></item><item><author>systemvoltage</author><text>Between 2007-2009, 80+ Stratasys patents expired. Think about this - a single company holding back the world in advancing forward in 3D printing. Orthogonally, ever wondered why memory on your PC is so expensive? Thanks to Micron, Hynix and Samsung triopoly.</text></item><item><author>_Microft</author><text>Don’t forget 3D printing that also only really started when patents expired.</text></item><item><author>listerOfSmeg</author><text>E-ink is one of those techs that only advanced when large batches of patents expire. E-ink the company has tied up the tech stack in so many patents, NDA&amp;#x27;s, and exorbitant prices that no one wants to touch it. E-ink the technology wont go any where for 10-15 years  when that next big batch of patents expire. Its just like 3D displays and VR there will be a massive consumer push new batches of patents will be filed progress will grind to a halt as no-one can afford everyone else&amp;#x27;s patent licensing fees on a unproven market until the next wave expires and better products can be built again repeat</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>E Ink has developed a 2nd generation Advanced Color E-Paper</title><url>https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/e-ink-has-developed-acep-gallery-4100-color-e-paper</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ivegotnoaccount</author><text>Is applying Moore&amp;#x27;s law relevant, since the manufacturing process of DRAM is hugely different from the one for usual chips (limited by capacitor size, not transistor one) ?
Same goes for hard drives.
Not saying that price gouging has nothing to do with this, but simply saying &amp;quot;Moore&amp;#x27;s law was not followed&amp;quot; does in no way imply something interfered with it.</text><parent_chain><item><author>dsr_</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s an article from 2011 doing Moore&amp;#x27;s Law extrapolation of RAM and disk prices: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;antranik.org&amp;#x2F;using-moores-law-to-predict-future-memory-trends&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;antranik.org&amp;#x2F;using-moores-law-to-predict-future-memo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;RAM, 2011: 
&amp;quot;A single 8GB stick of RAM is about $80 right now. In 2021, you’d be able to buy a single stick of RAM that contains 64GB for the same price.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Disks, 2011:
&amp;quot;The price of a 1-terabyte hard drive is $80 now...&lt;p&gt;In 2013, a 2TB drive will be $80.&lt;p&gt;In 2015, a 4TB drive will be $80.&lt;p&gt;After that the doubling rate may lengthen to 3 years instead of 2 years so..&lt;p&gt;In 2018, an 8TB drive will be $80.  And finally in 2021, for $80, you’d be able to buy a 16 terabyte hard drive&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>dragosmocrii</author><text>Can you elaborate on the memory pricing?</text></item><item><author>systemvoltage</author><text>Between 2007-2009, 80+ Stratasys patents expired. Think about this - a single company holding back the world in advancing forward in 3D printing. Orthogonally, ever wondered why memory on your PC is so expensive? Thanks to Micron, Hynix and Samsung triopoly.</text></item><item><author>_Microft</author><text>Don’t forget 3D printing that also only really started when patents expired.</text></item><item><author>listerOfSmeg</author><text>E-ink is one of those techs that only advanced when large batches of patents expire. E-ink the company has tied up the tech stack in so many patents, NDA&amp;#x27;s, and exorbitant prices that no one wants to touch it. E-ink the technology wont go any where for 10-15 years  when that next big batch of patents expire. Its just like 3D displays and VR there will be a massive consumer push new batches of patents will be filed progress will grind to a halt as no-one can afford everyone else&amp;#x27;s patent licensing fees on a unproven market until the next wave expires and better products can be built again repeat</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>E Ink has developed a 2nd generation Advanced Color E-Paper</title><url>https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/e-ink-has-developed-acep-gallery-4100-color-e-paper</url></story>