Commandment: Make backups.
If you violate this commandment, you will eventually lose your data.
Commandment: Test your backups.
If you violate this commandment, you will discover that you weren't ACTUALLY making backups.
If you violate this commandment, you will eventually lose your data.
Commandment: Test your backups.
If you violate this commandment, you will discover that you weren't ACTUALLY making backups.
If you violate this commandment, you will eventually lose users trust.
User Commandment : Once I sync the data, it must be available to me without any hassles on demand.
The usual technical lectures to users asking them to do things instead of making 'just work' don't fly.
That is why they ship TV's(with channels), Washing machines(with timers) and microwave ovens(with presets) without you having to bother too much about frequencies, volume/rotations and wave equations.
The user wants a product that 'works' the way he wants.
If a user goes from 1 copy (hard drive), to 2 copies, then it's a net gain for their backups.
If a user goes from 2 copies (hard drive, some backup system), to 2 copies (hard drive, Google drive), then yes, arguably, it's a net loss for their backups, because they can simultaneously have a HD failure and get locked out of their Google account.
But arguably, they could live in Joplin, MO and both of their current backups could be toast.
Best to have three - hard drive, backup drive in a safety deposit box, and Google Drive if you like the convenience and access and cost, and don't mind the privacy implications.
I don't mind the privacy implications. Google doing something evil with user's data would be absolute suicide for them.
If you also use two-factor authentication, I daresay that you are in the 99th percentile, or higher.
I'm not sure if GDrive has file versioning/restoration built into it or not, but there is an important distinction to be made here.
The use case is simple - When I put data on something, It must be available to me.
I can't learn how to be a sysadmin or expect my father to do that just to use this service.