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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

The “Bitcoin” people have that saying, cautioning people about wallet ownership and the danger of cloud wallets: “Not your keys, not your coins.”

I think we need a clever saying to rattle off every time someone gets burned by relying 100% on a cloud service (either the software screws up user data or suspends their account, without recourse) without backups/alternates.

Not your drive, not your data?

I don’t know, I’m not creative.

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Imagine one of those short films from grade school with drunk driving or drug abuse or whatever, but with a severe data loss incident. Show it off to kids nationwide, they'd take the sentiment home to their parents.

Imagine being a 40something and having your kid come home and say "Are our family photos backed up locally, redundantly on a rotating schedule with a tested disaster recovery plan?" "An untested disaster recovery plan isn't a disaster recovery plan".

"I learned it from you, Dad!"

"If you can't hold copies of it, it's not your data."

As in: two external drives, unplugged, one in each hand, each with a complete, usable copy. Bonus points for storing them in separate buildings miles away from each other.

In German there is 'Kein Backup, Kein Mitleid'. It translates roughly as 'No backup, No sympathy', as in you'll get no sympathy for your data loss. It's a bit negative though.

Not your metal, not your music.

Not your bits, not your beats.

Reminiscent of "the cloud is just someone else's computer", perhaps it can be extended to this situation with a few more words.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself. No contracts asked for, none unintentionally foisted on you.

There is no substitute for self-hosted.

"If you don't have a backup, it wasn't important."

It is somewhat too tough, and I haven't yet said it to anyone in his/her face. In my mind I think it often.

In the case of the OP, it was only: not your data.

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