The killer gigabit app? It’s not what you think
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
It has really changed the fundamental way I use the internet.
I would use cloud backups extensively...but when it'll take 6 months to actually upload all the data I'd want to, then that goes out the window.
If I had gigabit ethernet, the keeping files local practically no longer makes sense - my internet is faster then my disk storage. I can work almost entirely with cloud-based files and only keep a small amount of locally cached things.
What's worse is people are also just completely ignorant about how new technologies work. In the recent NBN debate in Australia, there was no end of "the future is wireless! Femto-cells on every power pole!"
With absolutely no consideration (or willingess to acknowledge) that any idea like that would absolutely require gigabit fiber backhaul (of much higher capacity then the wi-fi bandwidth if you want to use wavefront shaping techniques).
And no, cloud services certainly are not more reliable, and even if they were, using them would be the wrong solution. When assessing reliability, you have to consider the whole system and the impact of various failure modes you have to expect, not just simple technical availability, as you presumably are doing (and even on that front it seems to me like "the cloud" isn't all that much more reliable than my home server, they've all had their outages, and my home server also tends to have a multi-year uptime). How often have you had your home server decide to delete all your videos with a week prior notice, for example? With cloud services, economic and political failure are a much bigger risk than with your home server, and they tend to be much higher impact than your internet connection being down for a day or something (which obviously still would be a problem if you relied on "the cloud" while you are behind that broken connection).
If your concern is technical availability, then the solution to that should be higher quality software for your home server rather than making yourself dependent on one central entity.
2. Latency will hurt when you do anything interactive.
What I find most infuriating are the many people who justify current speeds (and prices!) by rationalizing that they don't use all that much bandwidth, anyway. Almost certainly, they're using more bandwidth than they were 15 years ago. If they have more bandwidth, I'm sure they can find a use for it.
The worst for me is that gigabit fiber exists, but is usually not available. In 1900, telegraph was the lowest-latency way to communicate a long distance. (Never underestimate the bandwidth of a steam train full of mail hurtling down the transcontinental railway.) It was the best there was, and it enabled a revolution in communications. Now, gigabit fiber is the best, but it's uncommon. Instead, the telephone and cable companies would rather reinvest profits into lobbyists and mergers.