The current cost spike is very recent. The average computer's RAM size has roughly quadrupled every four years since around 1988:
reply1988: 1MB
1992: 4MB
1996: 16MB
2000: 64MB
2004: 256MB
2008: 1GB
2012: 4GB
And then, from around 2014 or so, for the last 12 years, we've been kind of stuck on 8GB for some reason. There wasn't a ram shortage in 2016, so why didn't the average computer come with 16GB? The trend continuing would mean we'd have 64GB average machines by 2020. So what happened?
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replyI'm sure you're right. I don't know why the trend didn't continue. But, still, given the current conditions I don't think it's realistic to expect a budget laptop with 128 GB of RAM rolling off the line right now.
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