WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
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Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#2The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan.
I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future?
I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how they do storage: http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-h...
While we might not see many additional leaps of over 90% reduction in cloud storage costs, I (a) wonder how much headroom such innovation bought Backblaze, and (b) whether their main costs, hard drive, will keep pace with user demands.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#3The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan. I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future? I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how…
I think there is a difference between 'unlimited' and 'absurdly high.' Many hosting providers offer 'unlimited' storage but limit how fast you can upload -- this effectively caps their storage but makes it high enough for most users to never care. Instead of dubious 'unlimited' marketing I would prefer up-front pricing. GMail tells you exactly how much storage it offers for free with the idea that this is much too high for a normal user to touch. Much easier to deal with than an 'unlimited' service that breaks down under load.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#4The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan. I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future? I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how…
Costs of storage are of course declining rapidly, however so far the massive increase in available bandwidth and storage needs for customers is simply growing MUCH faster.
Part of the catch-22 here is also that with decreased storage costs for online storage providers (that increasingly are building their clusters with consumer component hard drives) keeps an even pace with decrease in cost for home-storage and the amount of data users are wanting to upload.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#5The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan. I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future? I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how…
FYI -- The backblaze storage hardware is similar (at least conceptually--specifics differ greatly) to what all the big self hosted backup companies (Mozy, Carbonite, SpiderOak, etc.) do. Custom hardware and data center storage software is the minimum price of entry for the industry these days.
The issue here I think is that "unlimited" really isn't unmetered and it never really was. The industry has often seen that marketing gimmick accompanied with abundant exclusions, fine print, and far less ethical tricks like upload rate limiters, that effectively impose limits behind the scenes.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#6If you are a Dropbox Pro user I think you get the packrat addon, which allows for unlimited history / undeletes. So, while the amount of files you can keep in your DB is limited, the amount of data that DB has to keep up with for you could get very large.
I don't see that they have anything to counter this in their model, and it kind of worries me that if people abuse this then they will remove the feature for all users, and I like my unlimited revisions.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#7If you are a Dropbox Pro user I think you get the packrat addon, which allows for unlimited history / undeletes. So, while the amount of files you can keep in your DB is limited, the amount of data that DB has to keep up with for you could get very large. I don't see that they have anything to counter this in their model, and it kind of worries me that if people abuse this then they will remove the feature for all us…
I would say that Dropbox (being a really super company with a great product) has issues that are actually even larger than the storage cost.
Dropbox is based on Amazon S3, which means that not only do they have storage costs to a 3rd party that are so to speak 'out of their control' but they are also dealing with bandwidth and transaction costs.
I wish them all the best, however I can imagine this being quite expensive for them considering the amount of free users they have.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#8The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan. I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future? I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how…
Costs of storage are of course declining rapidly, however so far the massive increase in available bandwidth and storage needs for customers is simply growing MUCH faster. Part of the catch-22 here is also that with decreased storage costs for online storage providers (that increasingly are building their clusters with consumer component hard drives) keeps an even pace with decrease in cost for home-storage and the a…
This is why I'm really liking Crashplan as a storage service; they offer the ability to use their software to backup to your friends' drives (and vice versa). It perhaps doesn't work out well for everyone, but I have enough friends that keep up with the latest hardware that I am assured of finding someone with which I can trade backup storage. (My alternate plan was dropping off a disk / picking up the old disk whenever I visited my relatives every couple of weeks!)
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#9The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan. I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future? I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how…
I think there is a difference between 'unlimited' and 'absurdly high.' Many hosting providers offer 'unlimited' storage but limit how fast you can upload -- this effectively caps their storage but makes it high enough for most users to never care. Instead of dubious 'unlimited' marketing I would prefer up-front pricing. GMail tells you exactly how much storage it offers for free with the idea that this is much too hi…
I've backed up a few hundred GB with Backblaze. I think the implication being made here is unfair. I'm much more likely to believe any issues with my upload were caused by shady AT&T QoS.
You know the kind. Goto any speedtest site and somehow you're getting exactly 12MB down, 3MB up, but it never really seems to add up that way anywhere else. Even to my own office, which I know has an extra 100MB to burst, yet somehow my downloads from the data-center across town are more likely to end up in the 3MB range 99% of the time.
Re: WHAAAAT? Unlimited storage for $4.99 a month not a viable business model?
#10The argument seems to be that average online storage needs are simply growing beyond what can be provided by a flat-fee unlimited plan. I don't know if that's true, but there's something important the post doesn't address: the potential declining costs of providing online storage. Might the two not balance each other out for the foreseeable future? I refer to this most excellent post by BackBlaze, which outlines how…
I think there is a difference between 'unlimited' and 'absurdly high.' Many hosting providers offer 'unlimited' storage but limit how fast you can upload -- this effectively caps their storage but makes it high enough for most users to never care. Instead of dubious 'unlimited' marketing I would prefer up-front pricing. GMail tells you exactly how much storage it offers for free with the idea that this is much too hi…
Explicit pricing is better for moderate users and worse for heavy users. "Unlimited" effectively subsidizes heavy users by overcharging moderate users. As a heavy user, I'm a fan of "unlimited".