Situation in Europe

"tape drives were the most popular storage device in Europe in the 1980s"

First of all: What is meant by just saying "Europe"? Europe is a continent, not a country. I only can describe the situation in Germany: Probably this was true in the very very early 80s, on computers like the ZX-81, VIC-20, PET 2001 and later the Spectrum or CPC464, like everywhere in the world, where those computers were sold and bought then. Tapes being popular for the 264-series even in the early 2nd half of the 80s was because of the C16, C116 and Plus/4 being very cheap consumer products, sold at discounters like Aldi or Esbella. But most users of successfull computers in the "Europe" I lived in the 1980s (Germany), did have a floppy disk drive then, even more in the middle and the 2nd half of the 80s: Apple II, C64/128, XL/XE, CPC664/6128, MSX2, Amiga, Mac, ST, PC clones.

To cut a long story short: This is a myth!