[xorcist]

Sure, but without VC money the product space wouldn't exist at all, at least not as a free service.

Who doesn't want free storage? No one, that's who.

See also: everything from Sourceforge to Docker Hub. Very few can complete the transition into a paid service.

The important distinction is whether you sell a product or a service. Dropbox is clearly a service, but it's easy to envision a product instead.

Had the user paid for storage up front, the product would be incentivized to support multiple backends to be able to compete on cost. But it doesn't, because it is the storage service that is the actual thing being sold.

[Fatnino]

People have been burned enough times by now that any fly-by-night that shows up promising free storage gets taken with a huge grain of salt.

Why would I upload my data for you to hold for free if history shows you are going to be gone in 6 months?

So to answer your question "Who doesn't want free storage?", everyone who's been burned before, that's who.

[dns_snek]

...Or worse, they start mining and monetizing your personal data under the pretense of a "free" service. There's no free lunch.