Streem (YC S12) Offers Unlimited Cloud Storage and Streaming for $20/Month
lifehacker.com
lifehacker.com
I've seen dozens (maybe more) references to the "Unlimited" service, and with only a few exceptions, they always fall into one of those categories.
I'm wondering when other people come around to my perspective, such that companies just put what those limits are, or clarify what the bottlenecks are.
I.E. Flickr doesn't say, "Unlimited Photos" for free, they say one Terabyte. One Terabyte of photos is much, much more interesting to me than "unlimited". And, when it does say "Unlimited Uploads" - it notes that you are limited to 200 MByte/photo.
I agree. It's infuriating, really, especially because the defense is always: "Well everyone else is a liar and that word doesn't mean what it means in the dictionary!"
Lots of companies already offer several hundred GB of storage and sharing at the $20/mo price point, and there are backup services like Backblaze that offer "unlimited" backup space for $5/mo without going out of business. So the monthly fee is enough to cover the storage and bandwidth that most users are realistically ever going to use. And when you have a lot of users, the average is the only thing that matters. If you use 1PB, you're being subsidized, not by the company but by a thousand low-utilization users.
In addition, they're probably betting on the price of storage to go down roughly in proportion to the gradual increase of average utilization over time. Actually, this is a relatively safe bet. 6TB drives now occupy the price point that 4TB drives used to occupy, which in turn can now be had for what 2TB drives cost a few years ago. With SMR & HAMR on the horizon and with neat tricks like stuffing 7 platters in a single drive filled with helium, this trend is likely to continue for quite a while (unless the Thai factories get flooded again).
But, I'm pretty certain if I tried to backup a 200 TByte iSCSI array (which appears as a "local drive", and, is theoretically something that could be backed up by BackBlaze) - I'd find myself either throttled, or receiving a polite email from Backblaze suggesting I was using their service in a manner that was not intended.
That's the thing with unlimited services - if you ask enough times, they will always tell you what the actual number is - I just wish they would come out up front and share it.
Then we enter the same territory as any other case where technically incorrect claims are used in the media. Like GB vs. GiB, or "hacker" vs. "cracker", or "hashing" vs. "encryption", you name it. When we nerds complain about people who fail to make such distinctions, it makes no difference whatsoever and they'll just look at us funny. Because vagueness and exaggeration are integral features of natural language and it is we who are being anal retentive about it.
In common parlance, "unlimited" is just a shorthand for "we're going to give you a large amount that we believe will be more than enough for the vast majority of our users, and we're not going to set up a specific limit, but we reserve the right to put up a limit if you do something that anyone with common sense should realize is an abuse of our policies". This works just fine in a world where people actually use common sense. You instinctively know that backing up your 200TB iSCSI array would be an abuse of Backblaze's policy, just as you know that grabbing a hundred napkins at the local McDonald's every morning and using it for all your personal hygiene needs throughout the day would be an abuse of McD's napkins-are-free policy. As long as everyone only uses as many napkins they need to wipe the ketchup off their fingers, McD's can continue to offer free "unlimited" napkins.
Typically, the actual quality of service and quantity of available resources does not depend on whether or not the service advertises "unlimited" something. Rather, it depends on the quality and integrity of the people who provide the service. A typical EIG-owned web host with an "unlimited" plan will kick you out if you use 100GB of bandwidth. YouTube, on the other hand, will happily let your homemade full HD music video consume 10PB of bandwidth.
I was recently in BC, Canada, and I was purchasing a SIM for data use, and was told that it was, "Unlimited for 3 days". When I asked them "How much is unlimited" - I expected to have to dance back and forth a bit before getting an answer, but the sales rep instantly said, "4 gigabytes."
I then noticed on the brochure that I got from them, that the plan clearly was listed as, "Unlimited data over three days up to 4 gigabytes"
I guess that could be considered winning half the battle.
Even better, though, is Singapore - where there is no concept of "Unlimited" with Singtel - word never appears anywhere. You purchase data packages with very clearly listed time and data amounts. And, if say, you want to use 100 GB - then you go purchase 14 GB for S$25, 4 times. Couldn't be more straightforward.
Any limits on filetypes? Is there a max size per file? How is the network speed? Do they fire any customers who use too much storage space and/or bandwidth?
What is stopping my company from encrypting our database backups and uploading them to Streem nightly for permanent storage at a fraction of the price of normal offsite backups?
No max file size limit.
We have CDNs around the world to help with network speeds. Of course, that's a vague answer for now, but we're gathering more data on upload/download speeds as we let more users in and will have more information on this in the near future.
Definitely not planning on firing anyone for using too much. The only case we'd ask someone to stop using our service would be if they're abusing our policies (i.e. 100 people on one account). So far we've been fine with an "expected value" type system -- some people will store/stream a lot, and some won't, but overall it all works out so that the $20/month price point works out just fine.
How do you guys limit by file type? I imagine that is is something more advanced than simply looking at the the file extension. But if there is any advanced analysis, how does encryption come into play? Lifehacker suggests users should encrypt their sensitive data before uploading, but will you accept encrypted files? Seems like it would be difficult to impossible to tell the difference between encrypted home video and encrypted database backup.
Unfortunately, we don't have a way to let you encrypt your data and then upload it up yet (but have a few ideas on how to make this work for the future). Besides, if you did encrypt all your stuff, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of all our media features like video/audio streaming, photo/doc viewer, etc. :).
Fair enough. But you should probably reach out to Lifehacker with a correction to their article. While you guys might not be responsible for what they write, that post is basically an advertisement for your service. Any customer who make a purchase assuming the service is as described by Lifehacker will end up disappointed.
You'd charge me only $20/month for media storage+streaming and I'll probably only be charged perhaps $30/month from a cloud provider. $20/month for the server just being on and maybe another $10 for the bandwidth of the static files(which would be mostly cached client side after the first couple of heavy usage months).
Maybe another $10 or $20 for the CPU time to make a couple of url-routing decisions server-side; have to maintain my own database of users too.
Probably still much cheaper than whatever twitch.tv currently has to pay.
Perhaps this is the start of a massive stock photo/video company?
[0] https://www.streem.com/terms
Edit: Or even if it's not the start of such a company, it would look awfully tempting for a company in that space to acquire. Having thousands of terabytes of media data, and the rights to modify and distribute it, can be very valuable.
"By posting any User Content on the Service, you expressly grant, and you represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to grant, to Company a royalty-free, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, edit, translate, distribute, syndicate, publicly perform, publicly display, and make derivative works of all such User Content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your User Content, in whole or in part, and in any form, media or technology, whether now known or hereafter developed, for use in connection with the Service and Company’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each User of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your User Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under this Agreement."
"If the features of the Service allow you to remove or delete User Content from the Service, the above licenses granted by you in your User Content terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete such User Content from the Service. You understand and agree, however, that Company may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Content that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in User Content for which the Service does not provide you a means to delete or remove are perpetual and irrevocable."
royalty-free: Streem doesn't have to pay the user to display the content they upload back to them from our authorized clients (web, desktop, mobile).
perpetual: The right to display the content doesn't expire after some time, unless the account is closed and data is deleted as described in the second paragraph.
irrevocable: Once the user uploads content, they can't tell Streem that they take back the right to display the content, except by deleting the content, which is covered in the second paragraph.
non-exclusive: This is there for the user's benefit. It means that the user retains the right to the content they uploaded, and we don't take exclusive rights on displaying it back to them. So they have full rights to upload/store/do whatever with it elsewhere.
worldwide: These rights are not restricted to a specific country/zone, like the US, because our service operates and displays content around the world.
publicly perform, publicly display: Users can generate public links to their files, so we have to cover the case where they post it publicly and let their content be publicly displayed via the link they created. Publicly display covers still work like images; publicly perform covers "moving" work like music and videos.
derivative works, copies: Gives Streem access to make thumbnails/cover arts (derivative work) and copies of the data (redundant storage).
authorizing others to do so: Lets Streem pass the content through different layers and service providers during the upload, processing, and when data is requested. For example, Streem has to pass the content through a CDN when the user accesses it, which this gives us the right to do.
The main thing that prevents Streem from abusing these policies is the "for use in connection with the Service and Company’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business" line. This ensures that we can only operate on the data to provide our service to the user when they authorize us to do so (i.e. if they click the "Share" button, they authorize us to operate on the file to enable it for sharing), and not for something like advertising the user's content to generate money since they haven't authorized us to do that (we'd have to add an opt-in "Advertise this for me" button or add it in to the TOS and appropriately notify everyone if we wanted to be malicious like that, which would be ridiculous for us).
Other cloud storage companies also have very similar TOS's, although they're more colloquial in their wording, so they may be easier to understand, but no different in the rights they're asking for.
If you want a more credible source, take a look at Yishan Wong's (CEO of Reddit) post: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1sndxe/weve_rewritten_...
The restriction line also doesn't apply at all. You simply start an affiliate company that does music promotion, then it is within the business line. The terms are a serious joke and horrible for customers. No one should trust a company with their data when the company is taking complete control and ownership of the data, with no restrictions or ability to revoke permission (even when deleting it).
Other storage companies (that I will work with) do not prevent me from using my own encryption to protect the data. So unless they break my encryption, my data is useless to them. Streem doesn't allow encryption, so this isn't like other storage companies. It seems like Streem is using this just to gather lots of content and sell it for profit, advertising and targeting purposes. Really scary...
ritikm gave a pretty detailed response to why they request those rights. To dismiss that explanation with "Streem is using this just to gather lots of content and sell it for profit" seems like unwarranted FUD.
Also, you may want to read that last TOS paragraph closer, especially the part about how they aren't relinquishing control of your data or their ability to copy/distribute it. You only read the first part of it, but ignored completely "The above licenses granted by you in User Content for which the Service does not provide you a means to delete or remove are perpetual and irrevocable."
So, what that actually means is, the entire part before is moot, if Streem isn't giving you access to REMOVE stuff. Which in the previous paragraph of the TOS, they say they don't have to (and won't give you access to REMOVE data). They may let you delete it, but not remove it. Legal stuff is fun to parse and written like this so they have loopholes.
How they behave and act according to their TOS is complete speculation at this point. My concerns are that their TOS is giving them the keys to the kingdom and asking me to trust them. If they only wanted these permissions to stream it, then say that. If they want permissions to transcode it, then say that. If it is just for their use, then don't say they can give other companies access/permissions to it.
"The above licenses granted by you in User Content for which the Service does not provide you a means to delete or remove are perpetual and irrevocable."
When is the service not going to provide a means to delete, and why? On top of that even when I can delete items there is explicitly no obligation to ever remove it from the server, only to make it unavailable.
- "We've developed proprietary de-duplication and compression technology to be able to give you unlimited storage"
- "Your files are encrypted with AES-256 bit encryption"
I'd prefer to know that my data is not encrypted, rather than reading marketing sentences that have none or obscure meaning when read together.
Check out this discussion of Mega for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072680
Example: You and I both have a file A. Our software encrypts that file A with a unique key generated from the file (say, the MD5 hash of the file), which makes E(A). Every user that uploads file A will generate the same encrypted version E(A) because the encryption key will be the same across each user (the MD5 hash of A).
For example, lets say somebody from HBO downloads Game of Thrones from The Pirate Bay and then uploads it to Streem. We could assume that many other people on Streem also have that same copy of the episode uploaded. HBO then issues a DMCA takedown (could they?), would Streem delete the file for everybody? And does Streem then have to prevent anybody from re-uploading it?
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/30/how-dropbox-knows-when-your...
Will you consider stronger encryption (of course as a premium service)?
Yes. Whenever i see unlimited i dont even look further into it. Well unless they are from big companies like Microsoft or Google which could actually afford to do it. Otherwise they dont have a viable business model. And i am weary of that.
I dont (quite) trust Google. And Client of Google Drive just somehow doesn't really suit my taste either. Skydrive is expensive. Dropbox client is the best, but i cant bring to myself to pay 5 times the price. Hubic has crap interface. I am looking at MediaFire and Bitcasa, but both previously had some bad reputation with it. Copy from Barracuda looks like best candidate at the moment.
I have my own NAS at home. 2x2TB Synology. But I know my home's power delivery quality isn't that great. Power Surge and Lighting are things that could easily destroy your NAS or Data even i have Raid 1 with another external backup. Having something in the cloud just removes the hassle of doing it yourself.
I have been dreaming lately of a NAS that does it with Backup in the Cloud in one go. And i just pay an initial fees with a monthly fees. Hoping Apple would do one. But since margin is so low i guess they are not interested.
- No sync required + native integration into Finder/Explorer. With Google Drive you have to sync (i.e. store locally) to open files with your native app like VLC, or you have to view them on the web if you don't store them locally, which is a hassle for the average joe, and a deal-breaker for the media enthusiasts/XBMC/Plex-ers.
- HLS adaptive bitrate streaming. Google Drive limits the quality, whereas we'll fluctuate the quality of the video based on your bandwidth.
Not nearly cheap enough for use with movies / music IMO
We do offer unlimited storage for $20/month, the 200GB for $20 is what Dropbox offers -- sorry if that was unclear.
Thank you for the clarification, it might be worth re-wording it slightly on your site? (or maybe I'm just blind!)
I do know some people that use that for backups on picasa and flickr, which have unlimited storage and 1TB respectively.
- Instant adaptive bitrate transcoding. Videos you upload to Streem play instantly on any device, regardless of bandwidth (slow connections automatically get a lower quality; if your connection gets better, we auto-upgrade to a higher quality). Streamnation has a large wait time before the video is transcoded and ready for playback.
- Streamnation has illegal features built in to their app (i.e. auto-scraping and uploading YouTube videos), which makes them much more liable for shutdown.