Considering the COVID pandemic is still mass infecting people (with somewhere around 1/10 people getting Long-COVID, and some percentage of those people being disabled long-term) and now it’s leading to weakened immune systems and fungal infections, my guess is another mass health-disruption event is what we’re on the brink of.
Or maybe mass homelessness and poverty. Does anyone remember that two-parter from Deep Space Nine where they go back in time with ghettos in San Francisco? Past Tense. It was set in 2024.
Of course. Storage space is cheaper on 7200rpm drives, and has, historically, for years. SSD is rapidly dropping in price, but it’s not on the same level, yet. Western Digital Gold 4TB is $150 USD. Crucial MX500 4TB SSD is $200.
EDIT: SSD is also not available for large drives, 8-20TB.