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Comment by caryhartline | Hacker News Reader

It's not like they can just give away unlimited storage.

I think it would add a lot to the Apple experience if they provided unlimited iCloud storage for your photos. It would be a much more seamless experience for a product like this.

Google allows me to back up unlimited "standard size" photos for free.

I also don't really see the problem. Very few will use excessive storage, which is the insight those free services with sizable storage is based on, like Flickr with 1 TB free which is essentially "unlimited" when it comes to photo storage. Key is to restrict it to a certain use scenario / file format, which will make it even harder to abuse.

Amazon Prime has unlimited photo backup as well (with prime subscription of course...)

which reminds me, I have a large stash of photos to re-backup.

But giving away the server software to host yourself would never happen either :-/

.. its not like the average user doesn't have their own bandwidth, and their own means of managing storage, back home at their computer. I think Apple are doing the world a disservice by putting more focus on the Cloud nature of things, and less attention on refining their OS to make it easier for people to manage these resources themselves, using the traditional method: with your own computer, your own bandwidth, and under your own control.

Seems like a ripe opportunity for a product - build your own Cloud on top of an OSX machine, leave it all at home and administer it - safely - from the beach while you're on vacation.

I think it's an ease-of-use race to the bottom - the whole cloud storage thing.

Inevitably, the cloud is going to be full of photos/videos nobody even remembers exist. It'll be cloud hoarding. It already is that with youtube allowing anyone to upload anything but I have to wonder if that's sustainable.

What you're proposing is the next step if cloud hoarding becomes a difficult enough problem - if not, it'll be like Windows being an unbelievable resource-hog but since users keep on buying faster and faster machines, nobody cares.

Except here, Apple and the other big companies are taking the hit, not the consumers, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

> I think it's an ease-of-use race to the bottom - the whole cloud storage thing.

That set me thinking if there's an asymptotic limit for that.

I suppose it would be for everyone in the planet to always be recording everything their eyes can see (and their ears can hear).

Greg Egan wrote at least one story about implanted devices for that, and there are calculations around for the data bandwidth.

I'd never thought of that, but it really is cloud hoarding! The masses of hi-definition tat on YouTube is really staggering. Unfortunately I contribute to it...

It's ok :)

If it gets to be too much, we'll quickly see 'pay to keep your videos afloat if they're not receiving over X number of views after X number of days' or something else to that effect.

The days of everything free are an early stage, short-lived move in order to gain massive market-share. Once near-monopoly position is established, it'll be time to monetize.

That's why the older generation shakes their head at walled gardens that gain massive momentum - they know what's most certainly going to come of it in due time.

Oddly though, YouTube has been at the point of monopoly for a long time yet are slow with their subscription model. They appear to be far more interested in redesigning their site and applications every 5 minutes.

There's a big gap between unlimited and what Apple gives away.

Flickr gives you 1TB of photo storage free but their app has been lacking the seamless integration with the OS and apps that Apple is promising.

But they show ads in your stream. I use flickr but am looking elsewhere.

Its a jarring experience really. you can look at 3 photos in a slide show, then in place of the 4th photo an ad. You can't even pay them to stop showing ads with your photos, as subscribing (which I did) only stops you from seeing the ads.

The paid version of Flickr is only $24 a year, and includes no ads. I've been using it since 2008 and have built a library of almost 9000 photos and videos. Even after Flickr's redesign, I still recommend the service for photo storage (unless you need RAW storage).

To keep everything backed up, I have a NAS in my basement that pulls a copy of my Flickr library on a routine basis.

Edit: Flickr Ad-Free is $49/year, but $24/year for grandfathered Flickr Pro subscribers. Sorry for the confusion.

I think his complaint is that the paid version only stops the person paying from seeing ads. A subscriber, for example, can't share their photos with a family member without them being interrupted by ads while viewing them.

thats right

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