[some-human]

The problem is finding them. If a layman looks for a cloud back up provider that isn't one of the BigTech group - uses Duck Duck Go and finds a small company offering 10GB back up for free. Unfortunately for them, that service is using AWS for storage, so ultimately despite they're best effort they're just using amazon cloud storage.

[quickthrower2]

This is where the small guys kick ass vs the Googles/Microsoft. Try Dropbox, Backblaze etc. Much better experience. Apple is OK UX wise but locked in which sucks.

[some-human]

Dropbox used to be hosted on AWS.

How is a laymen supposed to tell the difference between Backblaze - running their own servers, and a Dropbox-like - which is really just uploading your files to amazon's servers?

That's the point I was trying to make.

[RealStickman_]

Assuming Dropbox encrypt the data at rest, Amazon won't have any access to it. And if they do delete stuff they now have to deal with a company instead of single individuals.

[megous]

I wouldn't call Dropbox small guys, lol. They can build one large nuclear powerplant on their revenue every 2 years.

[quickthrower2]

That is right, but I cant resist bringing out the trope that airpods product line alone - just one produce line! - is one of the world’s biggest businesses and dwarfs most unicorns like Dropbox.

[scarface74]

People have a problem finding DropBox, OneDrive, Box, Apple iCloud?

[some-human]

Dropbox used Amazon until 2016, to only have their own datacentres in the last 5 years. Who's to say they decide that's not economical and move back to aws?

OneDrive IS Microsoft and iCloud IS Apple so they ARE BigTech, the same as Google? I don't see how that argues against the point?

Box is the only one in that seems to qualify? Kinda proves my point that it's not at all easy for a laymen.

[scarface74]

So instead of depending on three of the largest tech companies with built in redundancies, you want to depend on a fly by night operator with no track record?

You would even avoid DropBox because they also chose to use proven reliable technology until their own technology was good enough?

[some-human]

I mean personally I use iCloud and Google Drive, but i fully understand that at any point Apple or Google could decide to hand all of my data to a government, accidently turn off all their security and let anybody access my data, delete my data, or even go bankrupt.

But the point I was making was that it was hard for a laymen to decide to avoid using any of the bigtech companies, since so many of the small upstarts are just build on-top of the existing bigtech and aren't forthcoming on if they own the datacentre or if its Azure/Aws etc, so for those who they really did have privacy as their key driver it probably would be easier to self-host, or you have to trust somebody.

The adage that there's no such thing as cloud computing, just somebody else's computer makes sense. If you're that concerned with privacy it's far easier to run your own.

[scarface74]

There is very much such a thing as “cloud computing”. The “cloud” isn’t just a bunch of VMs. There is an entire offering on top of the VMs. Your average consumer is not going to spin up a bunch of Linode VMs and create their own backup solutions.

[some-human]

slip of the tongue/keyboard. It was obviously supposed to read "There's no such thing as cloud storage, just somebody else's computer." It's a fairly well known phrase[0][1]. It's even a laptop sticker[2].

And no, they're not going to spin up a VM. They should buy their own NAS and back everything up to that if they care enough about privacy to avoid cloud storage.

[0] https://pocketnow.com/no-such-thing-as-the-cloud [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/argram/the_clo... [2] https://www.redbubble.com/shop/there+is+no+cloud+stickers