The market leader being lazy is not a conspiracy theory. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that a competitor showing it can be done better motivated Steam to improve their product. That dynamic is a main reason why competition is good for the customer.

• Electric cars
• Reusable orbital rockets
• Robots
• AI

The Wrath of Kahn novel was released in 1982. The 1981 IBM PC already came with an optional 10MB HDD. So the author would have had to assume that storage space tech would basically never improve at all.