It's always an interesting back and forth between the "space is cheap" on the one hand, and "but data volume is increasing exponentially" on the other hand. For a few years, "space is cheap" ruled the discussion. It was getting so cheap that SQL Server DBA's had a hard time persuading developers to right-size their column types, nobody cared. Then big data came along, where the massive quantities of information being collected basically made "space is cheap" meet its match, and once again it matters depending on the big-ness of your data. Every principle in moderation. Except moderation? LOL. Didn't someone's signature once say that?