Non-technical users don't really buy hard drives individually, they would at most ask their computer-savvy friend or go to a shop who will replace it for them.
I highly doubt the average non-technical user even knows who produced the hard drive they own.
> Non-technical users don't really buy hard drives individually
Yes, they do. My dad bought two WD My Book drives by himself as backup drives. He luckily was not aware that those things have an extra software for backups, nor how to install it, but those things are just sold like that targeted to the average user in your average computer store.
Internal drives, you're right, likely wouldn't be bought by a non-techie alone.
But THIS affected type of drive is specifically marketed to a very non-technical user, and I can certainly confirm my non-technical friends and family have bought products in this segment independently, whereas my techie friends steer clear.
It's a NAS that's made to look like a drive. My techie friends would never buy it - they'd get Synology/QNAP, or do their own over-complicated time-consuming solution (slight editorial opinion there ;), or use cloud backup, or some combo. But my dad, mother in law, and other relatives have products like this, and have purchased them on their own. In fact, I think when asked, most techies would in fact go against the notion of buying cheap but internet-exposed storage device for a non-technical friend :O
Your slight editorial opinion reminded me of this HN hot-take from the DropBox announcement:
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
I highly doubt the average non-technical user even knows who produced the hard drive they own.