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Comment by benabus | Hacker News Reader

I feel like Cloud means something now, and as part of the general lexicon, it's okay to use it for what it means. At this point, Cloud kind of means that it's a service hosted somewhere on the Internet, that you don't control directly, usually that you pay for. Sounds like they're still doing that.

Changing the name to distance yourself from AWS and Google Cloud is fine, but "Link" doesn't really tell you anything about where it's hosted or that you still have to pay for it. In fact, by announcing this change with the specific goal of distancing yourself from Big Tech it kind of implies that you're no longer a paid service that happens in some remote data center.

But whatevs. Words don't actually mean anything anymore anyway.

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Changing the name to distance yourself from AWS and Google Cloud is fine, but "Link" doesn't really tell you anything about where it's hosted or that you still have to pay for it.

But in this case it’s a misnomer. The Home Assistant instance is not in the cloud, but local. The core service of Nabu Casa Cloud is making it remotely accessible. So Link is actually a better name.

I agree. It’s closer to a jump box than it is a SaaS offering.

That's fair. The distinction wasn't clear to me. Guess that's why they decided to change the name

> I feel like Cloud means something now [...] Cloud kind of means that it's a service hosted somewhere on the Internet, that you don't control directly

Hasn't it meant that for many decades now? Originating as a cloud symbol on network diagrams, but not long after used as a word when people wanted to talk about said diagrams. I certainly remember using it in the 90s, so it has meant that for at least that long. You make it sound like we've only recently come to this determination.

The cloud symbol on network diagrams originally referred to any unspecified network whose details didn't matter to the diagram in question.

"Cloud" today is typically used with a more specific meaning, to refer to services such as IaaS or PaaS, which didn't exist in the 90s.

I don't remember encountering the word "cloud" in the 90s used in the way you describe. The cloud could be a symbol for a telephone network, a packet-switched network (including the internet), a company WAN, etc. Typically you'd refer to whatever the cloud symbol was supposed to represent, it wouldn't be called "the cloud" unless I suppose you were discussing the diagram itself.

> whose details didn't matter to the diagram in question.

Exactly. Hence why services like AWS were said to be cloud services. The details not mattering was the value proposition being sold.

> PaaS, which didn't exist in the 90s.

It did, except we called it time-sharing back then.

> The cloud could be a symbol for a telephone network, a packet-switched network (including the internet), a company WAN, etc.

While you are right that the parent did specifically say internet, I am not sure there is a meaningful distinction anymore. Telephony, packet-switched networks, WANs, etc. are all, for the most part, a part of the internet now. The exceptions are exceptional and thus can be ignored.

Calling time-sharing “PaaS” makes essentially the same mistake as calling pre-IaaS systems “cloud”.

First, that’s not what they were called at the time.

Second, those older systems aren’t what either term actually refers to.

(Selling time on a mainframe would be closer to IaaS than PaaS anyway - in fact IBM’s VM/CMS even used the VM abstraction, which compute in most IaaS environments depend on.)

Your position only works if you ignore the actual extant definitions of what “cloud” or “PaaS” actually refer to.

We have, according to another commenter, what cloud actually refers to: "Cloud kind of means that it's a service hosted somewhere on the Internet, that you don't control directly"

Which is what, back when network diagrams were still cool, would have been drawn as a a cloud — something that your network depends on, but something whose details don't matter. And what one would have called a cloud if they were talking about said diagram.

The word didn't magically appear out of nowhere. These services were named cloud services because that's what name we had already reserved for them.

I mean, 15 years is relatively recent.

I remember when "cloud computing" was stuff like SETI@Home where a bunch of decentralized, distributed nodes all contributed computing power. But I think that's called the Blockchain now?

I don't know. I usually live under a rock.

I know it only feels like 15 years, but the 90s was, at very least, 26 years and some months ago. Although I suspect the usage goes back even further than that. The internet suggests it was used as far back as the 1960s.

But you don’t have to pay for it. It’s an optional service that provides a secure internet facing link to your HA instance.

You’re more than welcome to host your own or use a vpn or stick it behind cloudflare.

Cloud does mean something in home automation, and that meaning is generally: you must pay a monthly subscription or the product is degraded or doesn't work at all (looking at you wink). This isn’t that.

>Words don't actually mean anything anymore anyway.

They never did.

Well, except in France, they get really mad about that.

The announcement is a marketing stunt to direct people to their website.

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