I never heard someone say bulk downloading and data extraction wasn't scraping if it used volatile storage.

I suppose I could describe my use of Hacker News as scraping but perhaps addiction is a better term.

When have you seen someone scrape data for volatile storage?

I've got several bots that scrape various places for transient information which isn't stored anywhere but merely transformed and then posted to the Fediverse and/or notified to my phone.

(I suppose you could argue that the information ending up in a post or notification is "non-volatile" storage but honestly? People will laugh at you.)

Price comparison. Alternative front ends.

It's irrelevant to the definition of "scraping." Scraping from a website is grabbing data, in bulk, not through the website's own interface. It doesn't matter if you save the data, use it in RAM, or just download directly into `/dev/null`. Just like scraping paint off of a wall is still "scraping" whether you're letting it fall onto the floor, collecting it into a trashcan, or sweeping it out the door afterwards.