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So it's a ponzi scheme for cloud storage dependent on people continuing to pay to store new items in order for them to pay for their current costs. Although th

So it's a ponzi scheme for cloud storage dependent on people continuing to pay to store new items in order for them to pay for their current costs. Although the idea is to create a fund and operate off the interest. Let's look at their prices. $1000 for 100 Gigabytes or $100 for 10 Gigabytes. Basically it's $10/GB. With like a very safe dividend allocation they can probably get a 2% annual return on their investments, which means they need to only spend $0.20/year on my 1GB of data. They say their plan is perfect for phone or hard drive backups, and they offer continuous file migration. Let's say I completely replace the contents of my GB every 3 months. We can't use AWS S3 One-zone because they advertise "Redudant backup". S3 Standard Infrequent access is $0.0125 per GB per month, so that's $0.15/year/GB. Maybe they can use AWS S3 Glacier although I'm not exactly sure how it'd work with the continuous migrations. That would be $0.048/year/GB which is a lot more feasible. Data ingress into AWS is free, but egress isn't. If we download our GB 4 times per year that's $0.04 in egress. There's also some costs for PUT, COPY, POST, LIST, GET, SELECT requests, so let's say that for our 1 GB it'll amount to $0.01 per year. That means it'll cost us $0.098/year/GB for our storage service that we can only download from 4 times/year and does not give us millisecond-access to our data. I'm sure they can find a storage solution that's cheaper than using AWS S3 Standard Infrequent Access so they still have a good response time for data, but overall it seems feasible.

cocktailpeanuts 7y ago
if these people actually cared about people owning their own data, they would have released a toolkit or an application that lets each individual do what you've just described. Instead of asking for money.
- mmastrac 7y ago
  This is a somewhat ridiculous position. If I hope to preserve data for my children, I'm not going to hand them a box with jerry-rigged software and hardware that they then have to maintain. I want someone to maintain that for them. If I'm looking for my blog, or my tweets, or a set of family photos and videos to live on forever, I absolutely want them under control of a foundation that outlives me and my relatives interest in maintaining that data.
- cycomanic 7y ago
  So you just made the claim this is essentially a scam and the people don't know what they are doing (considering the people on the board that's quite a rich claim). JCharante just showed with a back of the envelope calculation that it seems feasible. Why don't you refute the argument and tell us why it isn't? You made some pretty bold claims, so I would be nice if you can back them up.
- ardy42 7y ago
  >>> There's no such thing as forever, especially if it's run by beings that won't be around forever. The scammy people behind this initiative will all die in hundred years. > if these people actually cared about people owning their own data, they would have released a toolkit or an application that lets each individual do what you've just described. Instead of asking for money. The only way human beings can successfully store data (especially symbolic/digital data) for long terms is by creating institutions to maintain it. Even granite tablet buried in a cave for 10,000 years will require a continuous series of institutions maintain the knowledge to successfully interpret it, otherwise you'll just end up with something like Linear A.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > they would have released a toolkit or an application that lets each individual do what you've just described Where is this individual going to store their data? On the unreliable hard drive on their personal computer, which they never back up? A toolkit or an application isn't hardware. Solving the problem of reliable long-term data storage requires hardware. Hardware costs money. Basically this service is competing with my ISP, my hosting company, etc. to be a long-term data storage provider.

cocktailpeanuts 7y ago

if these people actually cared about people owning their own data, they would have released a toolkit or an application that lets each individual do what you've just described. Instead of asking for money.

mmastrac 7y ago
This is a somewhat ridiculous position. If I hope to preserve data for my children, I'm not going to hand them a box with jerry-rigged software and hardware that they then have to maintain. I want someone to maintain that for them. If I'm looking for my blog, or my tweets, or a set of family photos and videos to live on forever, I absolutely want them under control of a foundation that outlives me and my relatives interest in maintaining that data.
cycomanic 7y ago
So you just made the claim this is essentially a scam and the people don't know what they are doing (considering the people on the board that's quite a rich claim). JCharante just showed with a back of the envelope calculation that it seems feasible. Why don't you refute the argument and tell us why it isn't? You made some pretty bold claims, so I would be nice if you can back them up.
ardy42 7y ago
>>> There's no such thing as forever, especially if it's run by beings that won't be around forever. The scammy people behind this initiative will all die in hundred years. > if these people actually cared about people owning their own data, they would have released a toolkit or an application that lets each individual do what you've just described. Instead of asking for money. The only way human beings can successfully store data (especially symbolic/digital data) for long terms is by creating institutions to maintain it. Even granite tablet buried in a cave for 10,000 years will require a continuous series of institutions maintain the knowledge to successfully interpret it, otherwise you'll just end up with something like Linear A.
pdonis 7y ago
> they would have released a toolkit or an application that lets each individual do what you've just described Where is this individual going to store their data? On the unreliable hard drive on their personal computer, which they never back up? A toolkit or an application isn't hardware. Solving the problem of reliable long-term data storage requires hardware. Hardware costs money. Basically this service is competing with my ISP, my hosting company, etc. to be a long-term data storage provider.