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Storage is already pretty cheap, but it's a pain in the ass to manage, because you need to handle backups and make sure they are not in one spot, so a fire won'

• CapitalistCartr 13y ago
  "Our future is small computers + high speed internet available everywhere + online storage and services. Not the other way around." Assuming our current technology, maybe. If I have limitless storage, and you do, too, I can be your backup, and you mine. Trickling in the background, always backing up. Or we could all have a mesh network backup doing similar to Dropbox crossed with Napster, without the centralization of either. Depending on bandwidth and storage growth, of course. Maybe the future is small computers, high-speed Internet available everywhere, and mass mesh storage/backup. Hopefully with encryption, however it goes, please God.
  • Retric 13y ago
    Mesh networks are still online storage from a users perspective in that it's limited by the users network connection. Also there is some software capable of this the problem is giving up a fair amount of bandwidth and storage capacity for somewhat safe but free backups vs paying ~50$ a year for safer backups without the headache. PS: Popular torrent files are basically this already as they can persist a long time after the initial seeder stops seeding.
    • andrewflnr 13y ago
      In this case, you're only limited by your network speed in the event of data-destroying event. In the normal case it's completely local, which has much less headache than any network option most of the time.
• pessimizer 13y ago
  >Storage is already pretty cheap, but it's a pain in the ass to manage Management is part of the cost of storage. If storage is cheap except for the cost of managing it, which is expensive, then storage is expensive.
  • ytjohn 13y ago
    True. It'd be better to say that storage is cheap at large quantities of scale.
• eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Our future is small computers + high speed internet available everywhere + online storage and services. Not the other way around. There's a massive backlash against this now that we find it's a recipe for Big Brother.
  • smsm42 13y ago
    As much as I am discomforted by continued erosion of privacy and as much as I intend to try and keep mine intact as possible, I think this backlash will come to essentially nothing. Convenience is too great so people would just gradually learn to live in a world where mostly anything you do is public unless you go to great lengths to hide it. For the next generation, it just would be the new norm and I don't think we can do much about it. We can try to minimize harm done to civil liberties, etc. but I don't think we can prevent the change from happening.
• podperson 13y ago
  Storage isn't so cheap when you consider that it doesn't last very long, so we're constantly having to move stuff to newer (thankfully usually bigger) storage devices.
• dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  "Our future is small computers + high speed internet available everywhere + online storage and services. Not the other way around." That's nice. If you perform a cursory examination of computer science history, you will find many examples of "what's new is old." Any new paradigm, usage scenario, software type, or what have you could invert that. Even the one you like so much ... I think they had these things called dumb terminals and mainframes at one point ...