> You need to learn how to make 4GB ones, or more correctly, how to build
> a factory to mass produce 4GB ones. And you're not going to do that
> overnight in the lab if you are currently only making 64MB ones. It
> simply won't happen, you'll go bankrupt (because your competitors
> figured out how to make 256MB ones and you didn't) before you figure it
> out.
>
> The only way to do it is to stretch your existing process to make 128MB
> or 256MB ones, trying to fix the odd few problems that will no doubt
> come up. That is called research and development.
>
> Once you have a stable process for 256MB ones, you can again try and
> push to make 512MB or 1GB ones, you will no doubt come up against
> different problems than you had last time, you might need some fairly
> big steps in technology development, but it's possible.

Perhaps it's because I don't work in that sort of industry. All this 
sounds kind of abstract to me. I don't see how going to 10x is "harder" 
than going to 2x. I'm not saying it isn't, I'm saying I don't understand 
why.

>> Then again, cars don't improve in performance at all. Today's cars have
>> performance within a few percent of cars made 40 years ago. And yet,
>> people still buy cars.
>
> Compare pretty much any criteria and cars have vastly improved.

How about, uh, speed?

30 years ago, cars could do 70 MPH. Today, cars can do 70 MPH. As far as 
I know, there's little to no improvement in acceleration either. 
Expensive cars were always faster than cheap cars, but other than that, 
not much change in three decades. Braking is the only thing I can think 
of which might have improved; we have ABS now.

Cars do seem to have more "gadgets" now than they used to. Once upon a 
time, if you wanted electric windows, you'd have to buy a luxury sports 
car. Today it's hard to find a car /without/ electric windows. I'm not 
sure how or why that happened, BTH.

>> On the other hand, pens and pencils don't improve in performance either,
>> and they still sell plenty of those.
>
> That's just because you don't work with designing pens :-) I'm pretty
> sure they are continually using the latest materials and inks available,
> you just don't notice that your pen doesn't snap as easily or
> clog-up/stop working as often as it used to.

To some extent, it's the sort of device that you only notice when it 
/stops/ working. That said, there's been no /noticeable/ improvement. 
And my point, of course, was that even if pens never did improve ever 
again, people would /still/ buy them. Because they're a consumable item.

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