Well, since my comment on nytimes.com apparently got moderated out of existence, I retrieved it from my clipboard history. Here it is. (And maybe someone can he

Well, since my comment on nytimes.com apparently got moderated out of existence, I retrieved it from my clipboard history. Here it is. (And maybe someone can help me figure out why this would get ditched by the moderator.) Keep in mind this was written for NYT audience, not HN audience. The problem with online backup is not the lack of existing services. I've tried a few and they each more or less get the job done, with Dropbox and ZumoDrive being exceptional. The problem is lack of bandwidth in the US. I have a "high speed" internet connection and pay for the "turbo boost" package. Despite the cute marketing terms and the hefty bill, what it boils down to is grossly asymmetrical bandwidth that's piss-poor on the upstream side. At best, I can push 200MB an hour. At that rate it takes about 500 hours to upload 100GB, which is not even that much data in these days of massive photo files, HD movies, etc. I gave up in frustration and went back to external drives. While other countries, most notably Japan, work to provide fiber connections to the majority of their citizens, we're still partying like it's 1999 here in the US. As a web developer and heavy internet user, I feel strongly that the bandwidth issue is more than just a PITA; it's hurting our economy. Don't think for a second that Google doesn't know how terrible the user experience is with online backup. They've been buying dark fiber on and off for years. But until that fiber gets to the curb, my guess is that they'd rather not deal with the support issues that would arise from a large-scale consumer-focused online storage system.