Floppy disks / decline : some discussion on the topic here. Data density, hardware manufacturing, environmental factors, are among common reasons given.
Concepts like 'clip rate' are interesting. To quote an old mag advertisement 'Clip Rate is the amount of oxide coating that a disk can loose before it becomes unuseable. It is usually expressed as a percentage. Most high quality disks have a clip rate of 60% or higher'.
The fact such quantifiable factors exist, with variation between brands/etc, all but proves that There Are Ways To Do It Cheaper & Worse! Presumably, the decline of the market for floppy disks involved a gradual, general withdrawal of resources and attention on every level.
Supporter of PicoGUS, PicoMEM, mt32-pi, WavetablePi, Throttle Blaster, Voltage Blaster, GBS-Control, GP2040-CE, RetroNAS.