So what is it that drives this industry was: A 40 Mb drive

"Wet" chemists?

Probably because this isn't the group of choice for people who enjoy delving into the recent history of materials science and the like. If you see that as a deficiency, feel free to do some research and tell us about it.

Personally, I'm highly dubious of any claims about industry "drivers". Industries change under the influence of complex networks of hetero- geneous actors (under the Latourian interpretation, which I find more useful than the alternatives). You might as well claim that the "drivers" are the legions of video gamers, who provided the economic incentive to keep driving raw performance up and prices down. How many of their names do you know?

While I agree that advances in hardware over the last, say, 30 years are a hell of a lot more impressive than advances in software (as Nick McClaren recently noted, software is still crap), I think "all thanks to the hardware" is a simplistic analysis.

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They had forgathered enough of course in all the various times; they had again and again, since that first night at the theatre, been face to face over their question; but they had never been so alone together as they were actually alone - their talk hadn't yet been so supremely for themselves. -- Henry James