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Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

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Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#101
post #86
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess there are more generous nowadays than they used to be, I surely didn't had such storage access during early 2000's.

You remind me of my professor telling me not to complain about low memory. He then will tell me about how much he was excited when he could have a machine with 1MB memory in 1980s when he was my age.

Memory was a real limitation, though. You can store an insane amount of stuff with 20GB already.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that help in the slightest though? Majority of monitors worldwide are just normal TN/IPS/VA panels, for them the colour of the pixels makes absolutely no difference in power consumption. While OLED monitors exist, they are pretty much a niche within a niche.

Lots of monitors (probably most at this point?) have multiple backlighting zones in order to cheat at contrast ratio measurements.

FALD? It's so rare it's practically unheard of, some very high end HDR-compatible monitors have it, but I wouldn't describe it even remotely as "most". In fact I'll eat my hat if 99.99999% of monitors out there use anything other than edge-lit panels that don't change brighthness no matter what you display.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#103
post #51
post #10

Apple cut the phone charger for environmental reasons too. It always has to be the end user who sacrifices for the environment.

They could make the theme for bing and other microsoft websites dark instead of white, literally just a change of color, if they wanted to reduce screen power usage globally - so many "no impact" changes with software that this has to be a fake justification.

It's weird MS isn't doing that yet given their own OS and its apps already support dark mode, and websites can detect this setting as well.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are just as bad.

Then why single out Microsoft? And you haven't explained why are they bad.

This thread is about Microsoft, it’s pointing out their hypocrisy feigning concern about the environmental footprint of their cloud infrastructure.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#105
post #47

On the Microsoft page[1] about this change they say > Storage of this “dark” data takes up space on servers and results in increased electricity consumption, generating 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 alone. Where "dark" data is data that is unused. However they link to this World Economic Forum Page [2] which says > In 2020, digitisation was purported to generate 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.…

Isn't it more misleading to claim that this is just due to environmental reasons? The first link you provide actually says the first reason is due to security (you wouldn't believe how often student accounts are compromised and/or used for sharing pirated content). The second reason is the environment, and the 3rd, reason, even though they don't say it outright, is cost, and I'm guessing that's the real reason.

But giving institutions 100TB of base storage with more for paid licenses isn't exactly stingy.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as homes don’t have high quality symmetric ipv6 fiber connections not hidden behind CGNAT, the cloud is here to stay. Ideally, you would be able to buy a ready to go NAS and set up your own cloud at home in a few easy steps.

Cloud storage is better than local storage for the average person. * The average person does not do backups. No, he will not do backups. No! He seriously won't. Cloud storage solves this very real, very basic problem. * The average person does not understand file systems. No, he will not understand file systems. No! He seriously won't. Cloud storage solves this problem by Abstraction(tm). * The average person does no…

1) we have seen recently that data can disappear also from cloud storage, so I don’t like talking about average person, because I am an average person in medical terms, but I still take the steps necessary to stay healthy, like doing periodic checkups, so the average person in tech needs to educate themselves in doing their backup or not complaining, I am not sure we have to build a society based on the needs of the average person who doesn’t bother reading anything or anything

2) Filesystems et cetera, are not rocket science, Windows gives you even a way to automatically create mirrored disks, it's just a matter to read a tutorial

I don't feel I have any obligation towards average people, it's their works and it's their duty to understand basic tech, it's not rocket science. Like all other people try to inform themselves about pipes in a bathroom, kitchens, medicals, etc.

If they don't, if Google or Microsoft change their ToS (That I guess the average person hasn't bothered reading) or if Google has a data loss, then should not complai, if Microsoft changes their policies, they shouldn't complain, being an average person is not a justification to live leeching society, ignorance has never been a justification

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. The e-waste related to including chargers in the box is a real thing. That change also allowed them to halve the size of the boxes, effectively doubling the shipping yield. On a billion-device level that's a non-trivial change. And yes, it's good for their bottom line. And yes, it effectively increased the pri…

I think the real e-waste is buying a new phone so often that your house is flooded with old chargers.

Android update support is still just around 2-4 years and countless other devices come with their own charger as well, while chargers last much longer and usually just become obsolete (no fast charging etc)

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#108

Just a philosophical question, that I think is on topic, I wonder how many cloud services will have to give people unpleasant experiences for those same people to stop going all in on cloud services, especially in the era of we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions without notice at our discretion At this point I’m not even mad with Microsoft

As long as homes don’t have high quality symmetric ipv6 fiber connections not hidden behind CGNAT, the cloud is here to stay. Ideally, you would be able to buy a ready to go NAS and set up your own cloud at home in a few easy steps.

The real question is why nobody ever looks at the smaller regional cloud providers when the big ones pull some stunt they don't like.

There is hundreds of companies offering nextcloud hosting, and yet the presumption is that only the big 3 is viable.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as homes don’t have high quality symmetric ipv6 fiber connections not hidden behind CGNAT, the cloud is here to stay. Ideally, you would be able to buy a ready to go NAS and set up your own cloud at home in a few easy steps.

Cloud storage is better than local storage for the average person. * The average person does not do backups. No, he will not do backups. No! He seriously won't. Cloud storage solves this very real, very basic problem. * The average person does not understand file systems. No, he will not understand file systems. No! He seriously won't. Cloud storage solves this problem by Abstraction(tm). * The average person does no…

>The average person does not do backups. No, he will not do backups. No! He seriously won't. Cloud storage solves this very real, very basic problem.

It should be technically feasible to make setting up backups to your own NAS at home as easy as backups to iCloud. So if people are backing up to iCloud, I do not see why they would not backup to their own NAS. Same for why they do not need to understand a file system just because they have a NAS.

> Combined with the previous, a 1TB HDD/SSD in a NAS at home is "WTF" and "WTF" for him.

I don’t know what WTF means here. 1TB is cheap these days, so not sure what the issue is being pointed out in your 3rd bullet point.

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