I disagree with your handwaving bitflips away as a minor annoyance. Consumers don't love software crashing, even if they don't have any data they care about.

I disagree with your handwaving bitflips away as a minor annoyance. Consumers don't love software crashing, even if they don't have any data they care about. Imagine ECC was free -- would you rather have free ECC and no bitflips, or no ECC and bitflips? It's hard to imagine choosing bitflips.