[Spooky23]

I’d make the exception for Google Drive, OneDrive and whatever the AWS one is. The hyperscalers are able to get prices way cheaper with economies of scale and price models in a sustainable way.

When O365 launched, they were using spinning disk for exchange. The issue was that they stranded capacity because of the IOPS needs of exchange. So “free”, (low iops) SharePoint and OneDrive for business data utilized that “free” capacity.

[rsync]

"I’d make the exception for Google Drive, OneDrive and whatever the AWS one is."

No - no exceptions.

We must, as sophisticated 21st century actors, insist that providers (especially providers of critical services) have financial interests that align with our own interests.

I don't care how big the parent is or how much money they have to burn - if it makes financial sense to keep you from storing your backups you need to go elsewhere.

[Spooky23]

You’re missing the point. Those companies are providing extremely profitable services, of which data storage is a part. Office and Workspace are lines of business with 50-60% margins.

Non-nerds are going to screw up backups without good UI. If you want to pay by the drink, like I said, use the hyperscalers.

[immibis]

On the other hand why should you not extract value from someone who is giving you free value?

[Spooky23]

Unless you uuencode your photos and chisel them into stone tablets, stored in your personal salt mine, you’re not serious about backups.

[j45]

The economies of scale go into profit for them while still incrementally increasing costs for clients.

If it was aligned with economies of scale, customers would get more storage for the same price every year.

We don't hear about cloud prices coming down that often.