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This is cool, but I wonder when it will actually be done by reference rather than reference then copy.

When will I be able to keep a "this is in use here" record for a file that is stored else where. Whilst way better than download-upload on broadband / cell; it still seems dumb to copy in the first place, even if it is on internet backbone.

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This would require some sort of single-sign-on, or capabilities system. Would love to see capabilities-based security for web services, actually. "Here is a token that grants permission to service X to perform action Y for duration Z." Can OpenID and ilk do this?

Anyway, apps that don't need security should be as you describe already.

This is pretty much exactly what OAuth does - enables the user to authorize a web service to access another one on their behalf, with per-app, per-user constraints.

I mean you can do that right now with URLs no? When you need the content, do a GET request on the link, when you want to save do a POST. This is especially nice for images as you can just throw the url we pass back in an img tag

Nitpick: you'd save with a PUT. Otherwise, yes, that's exactly what one should do.

Yes - my bad. To be fair, we support both, but PUT is the proper verb

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