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The amount of data is growing superlinearly while their resources (probably) aren't, so a dropping price for storage is currently allowing them to keep up (if j
by skosch 7y ago
The amount of data is growing superlinearly while their resources (probably) aren't, so a dropping price for storage is currently allowing them to keep up (if just barely so).
- eru 7y agoAs a mathematical curiosity: an exponential decreasing price means that the total expense to store a Gigabyte forever is finite. Eg a 10% decrease a year, means that storing forever costs approximately ten times the first year's storage cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_series#Sum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_series#Sum has the math.
- goodside 7y agoA stream of perpetual future payments does not need to be decrease exponentially (or decrease at all) to have finite present value. A contract to receive $1/year forever (which you can resell or leave as inheritance etc.) is worth 1/r, where r is the risk-free rate of return at the time the contract is sold. At 1% interest a $1 perpetuity is worth $100 — the amount of money you’d have to put in a bank today to expect to get $1 in interest per year forever.
- eru 7y agoYes, the exponential decrease is sufficient, but not necessary. Of course, you are putting an exponential decrease into the present value calculation. To give a truly non-exponential example: summing up 1/n^2 also only gives you a finite value.