Ask HN: Would you exchange customer data for free cloud hosting?

1 point·nathanyz··6 comments

If there was a cloud hosting service that was totally free to host your web, app, database, etc and the only caveat was that you would allow the cloud host to be able to aggregate & mine all of your user/customer data for monetization, would you be willing to use such a service?

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I'm hard pressed to identify doing anything that would destroy my business faster than this, aside from "cutting out the cloud hosting middleman and just tweeting the customer data directly."

What if it was just the web page or app content that the user viewed which was mined and monetized, but maybe not personal information directly from your database.

Does that change your answer?

I think we’re considering very different use cases for cloud hosting. Who are my hypothetical customers, what is my hypothetical app to your model?

The app could basically be anything, but in terms of where the needle is on what data would be shared and used for monetization by the service provider is the interesting part and reason for the question.

Whether it is a web app, mobile app, big data service, or other, assume that the cloud hosting provider could see user behavior data as it transits between your servers. Also assume personally identifiable information was masked or removed from this capture.

Would you trade that access to your data flow in exchange for free hosting?

No, please, no, make it stop.

So you’re a maybe?

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