the $/gb of storage is declining, which is more relevant here.
The big boogeyman that noids have insisted on for the past ~30 years is that intel agencies are saving everything they can to try and decrypt it later. Thankfully for us, the rate at which internet traffic grows year over year massively outpaces the global production capacity of spinning rust.
The last time I did this napkin math I think the collective global production was barely enough for some small fraction (maybe 1/8th or 1/12th) of everything.
It isn't exactly something that can be done in secret. Everyone else has to buy hard drives too, there are only so many sources of raw materials, places that can refine them, etc
E: I think the most relevant thing to avoid if this is a concern for you would be commercial VPNs. There's a reason fiveeyes doesn't want them to be banned. They can almost assuredly save piles of money by simply coercing providers into allowing them physical access to leverage side channel attacks
Declining? Not when I try to price out 10tb drives. I'm sure the economics will catch up eventually, but anyone shopping for hard drives is getting a shock.
