Is demand for data storage or supply driving increased storage?

Figuring out whether we're storing more data than ever because we're producing more data or because constantly evolving storage technology lets us store more of it isn't easy. Whether you're growing on-premises storage or your cloud storage footprint this year, it's likely you're increasing total storage faster than ever. Where we used to see capacity upgrade requests for proposals in terms of tens of terabytes growth, we now regularly see RFPs for half a petabyte or more. When it comes to storage size, huge is in. Do we really need that much more data to stay competitive? Yes, probably. Can we afford extremely deep storage repositories? It seems that we can. However, these questions raise a more basic chicken-and-egg question: Are we storing more data because we're making more data or because constantly evolving storage technology lets us?