Predictions that improvements in manufacturing will lead to lower prices are made ceteris paribus; rising prices caused by a temporary disruption cannot be used to conclude manufacturing costs have gone up until the original conditions have been restored or been shown to be unable to be restored. Since R&D has largely gone on unmodified, there is no particular reason yet to expect that hard drive prices per unit capacity will be any higher in 2013, after most manufacturing facilities are restored and the market has had time to readjust, than an extrapolation made 1990-2010 would have predicted.
And the relevant question as to whether a facility is too expensive to rebuild is not one of the size of firms in that business currently, but of the expected rate of return on the capital. Sunk costs in the form of destroyed fabs will not prevent new capital from coming in to build new fabs (though it might bankrupt specific firms). For sabotage to actually have a long-term effect, it would have to happen regularly enough and effectively enough to significantly drive down the expected rate of return on capital invested in building fabs.
Predictions that improvements in manufacturing will lead to lower prices are made ceteris paribus; rising prices caused by a temporary disruption cannot be used to conclude manufacturing costs have gone up until the original conditions have been restored or been shown to be unable to be restored. Since R&D has largely gone on unmodified, there is no particular reason yet to expect that hard drive prices per unit capacity will be any higher in 2013, after most manufacturing facilities are restored and the market has had time to readjust, than an extrapolation made 1990-2010 would have predicted.
And the relevant question as to whether a facility is too expensive to rebuild is not one of the size of firms in that business currently, but of the expected rate of return on the capital. Sunk costs in the form of destroyed fabs will not prevent new capital from coming in to build new fabs (though it might bankrupt specific firms). For sabotage to actually have a long-term effect, it would have to happen regularly enough and effectively enough to significantly drive down the expected rate of return on capital invested in building fabs.