It really feels like we missed out on cheap optical storage. Blank CDs were pennies and blank DVDs weren't far behind in a time when DVDs were "big enough." Stories predicting discs with hundreds of gigabytes and eventually one day, Terabytes of cheap optical disc storage. Then the internet, cloud storage, cheap flash memory and streaming media rapidly chipped away at the need for cheap plastic optical storage. Feels like a missed opportunity.
A fantasy of mine is walking into a Microcenter and picking up a 100 pack of 1TB discs for $50 bucks.