[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

[scarface74]

Just because it is well known doesn’t make it true. S3 alone is made up of 100+ microservices

[some-human]

Sure, but we're talking about cloud storage here for a laymen, who's hardly likely to know what AWS is, and we're also talking about a laymen who just wants to backing up a file, they're not using thinking about any of that. They just want to put their file on a drive somewhere. I'm arguing that if they care that much about privacy they should back it up to a device they own, and not use on a cloud provider. You're not providing a defence against any of that. You're saying that instead of storing their files on Google's computer they should use Amazons, or Microsofts? Why? If they truly value their own privacy they should back things up to a device they own such as a NAS, and/or a trusted family members NAS.

I've also just seen, which you didn't disclose, that you work at AWS[0]. Not disclosing a vested interest doesn't exactly lend confidence to your impartiality. Either way, I'm still not sure how your argument is a rebuttal to my proposal. SO far it seems to amount to "other cloud providers exist" and "Your mistype wasn't accurate"?

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32556018