After reading through the answers here, I don't think the real answer has been given.
Is it the technology?
* Flash cells can store more data an be produced cheaper per cell. But they are more complex to read out and slower.
This can explain some factor, but the factor of 40 given by OP probably not.
* Flash and DRAM probably use different processes.
This could explain a bit but look at the next point...
* DRAM has a much longer history and (at least in the beginning) much higher capital investment.
...which means that DRAM should have the technological advantage. At least through economies of scale.
Is the cumulative investment in flash research already much bigger compared to DRAM research?
Is the process used to produce flash memory so much easier?
Is it the market?
* Obviously people pay the price.
* With DRAM people are hungry for performance more than they are for size.
* We already have more than enough DRAM. The latest MacBookPro demonstrates that 16 GB DRAM is enough for just about everybody but flash storage goes up to 1 TB.
* Of those 16 GB DRAM the speed and power consumption are much more important than the raw size.
Coming back to the cumulative investment. I think that the primary pain point for flash has been the price per GB. Flash could be stronger, faster, more reliable, less power consuming but those are all secondary. It is fast and reliable enough by using very complex RAID controllers. The power consumption is not as bad as HDDs already use a lot and the data mostly just sits around. The main driving point is the price per GB. This is where the money goes in flash development.
On the other hand for DRAM, after some point, it is mostly speed and power driven. Reliability has to be comparatively high as every cell must work over years. Size is mostly increased by improving semiconductor processes where flash probably uses a lot of the same technology. Using the layer stacking technologies of flash is probably not yet applicable because it is not reliable enough and not compatible with the cell layout, maybe it never will.
If we really were hungry for so much RAM we would probably get it. But we aren't. It's good enough. Progress slows down.
You're thinking like an MBA and dismissing the biggest factors
Writing to DRAM is much, much faster than writing to SSD, also reliability (in the sense that you can use chips with defective cells in SSDs).
You mentioned those factors but you're not giving them enough importance. Market factors are important, but the price is not going to be less than cost.
I'm thinking like an MBA here because that's how you have to think in order to reason about the price something has.
Yes, those factors are important! But are they also the main driver of cost? I don't know.
Could we have speed, reliabaility and size? That is a technological question. I don't have the answer to that.
Would enough people care to pay for speed, reliability and size? That's more of an MBA question and the answer probably is no.
The example given is: People pay extra to have 1 TB of flash in their machine but they are OK with only having 16 GB of RAM. The priority is even to have a lower power consumption instead of having 32 GB of RAM.
While you are right that we maybe cannot deliver the technology on a pure technological stance, you kind of miss the point. Even if we could, we wouldn't do it because of the MBAs driving the fincances in a certain direction based on (perceived) market forces.
The question was: "Why are flash memory prices going down so much faster than RAM?"
Answer: because there are (technological) ways of making it cheaper (and probably slower/less reliable, but not much), as well as economy of scale factors
Why DRAM doesn't get cheaper: because it has to follow much stricter requirements.
The question itself is naive. It thinks "megabytes of memory" are the same thing regardless of form factor
Would enough people care to pay for speed, reliability and size? That's more of an MBA question and the answer probably is no.
Yes, probably not. Not the masses at least. Unless they buy Apple, they (still) care about this mostly, apart from adapter shenanigans
Comments
After reading through the answers here, I don't think the real answer has been given.
Is it the technology?
* Flash cells can store more data an be produced cheaper per cell. But they are more complex to read out and slower.
This can explain some factor, but the factor of 40 given by OP probably not.
* Flash and DRAM probably use different processes.
This could explain a bit but look at the next point...
* DRAM has a much longer history and (at least in the beginning) much higher capital investment.
...which means that DRAM should have the technological advantage. At least through economies of scale.
Is the cumulative investment in flash research already much bigger compared to DRAM research?
Is the process used to produce flash memory so much easier?
Is it the market?
* Obviously people pay the price.
* With DRAM people are hungry for performance more than they are for size.
* We already have more than enough DRAM. The latest MacBookPro demonstrates that 16 GB DRAM is enough for just about everybody but flash storage goes up to 1 TB.
* Of those 16 GB DRAM the speed and power consumption are much more important than the raw size.
Coming back to the cumulative investment. I think that the primary pain point for flash has been the price per GB. Flash could be stronger, faster, more reliable, less power consuming but those are all secondary. It is fast and reliable enough by using very complex RAID controllers. The power consumption is not as bad as HDDs already use a lot and the data mostly just sits around. The main driving point is the price per GB. This is where the money goes in flash development.
On the other hand for DRAM, after some point, it is mostly speed and power driven. Reliability has to be comparatively high as every cell must work over years. Size is mostly increased by improving semiconductor processes where flash probably uses a lot of the same technology. Using the layer stacking technologies of flash is probably not yet applicable because it is not reliable enough and not compatible with the cell layout, maybe it never will.
If we really were hungry for so much RAM we would probably get it. But we aren't. It's good enough. Progress slows down.
You're thinking like an MBA and dismissing the biggest factors
Writing to DRAM is much, much faster than writing to SSD, also reliability (in the sense that you can use chips with defective cells in SSDs).
You mentioned those factors but you're not giving them enough importance. Market factors are important, but the price is not going to be less than cost.
I'm thinking like an MBA here because that's how you have to think in order to reason about the price something has.
Yes, those factors are important! But are they also the main driver of cost? I don't know.
Could we have speed, reliabaility and size? That is a technological question. I don't have the answer to that.
Would enough people care to pay for speed, reliability and size? That's more of an MBA question and the answer probably is no.
The example given is: People pay extra to have 1 TB of flash in their machine but they are OK with only having 16 GB of RAM. The priority is even to have a lower power consumption instead of having 32 GB of RAM.
While you are right that we maybe cannot deliver the technology on a pure technological stance, you kind of miss the point. Even if we could, we wouldn't do it because of the MBAs driving the fincances in a certain direction based on (perceived) market forces.
The question was: "Why are flash memory prices going down so much faster than RAM?"
Answer: because there are (technological) ways of making it cheaper (and probably slower/less reliable, but not much), as well as economy of scale factors
Why DRAM doesn't get cheaper: because it has to follow much stricter requirements.
The question itself is naive. It thinks "megabytes of memory" are the same thing regardless of form factor
Yes, probably not. Not the masses at least. Unless they buy Apple, they (still) care about this mostly, apart from adapter shenanigans
16GB RAM is fine for consumer devices (mostly), but hilariously small for scale/hyperscale environments.
General agreement is that Macbook Pro is not so great with only 16GB RAM.