Opinion: Woz Predicts a Horrendous Cloud, and I Agree

[daddyd01]

Though I would never, ever agree with, or even acknowledge anything Jobs said, I do have some respect for Wozniak, even though he does still represent Apple, which I absolutely despise with a passion. I wholeheartedly agree with him about the so-called "cloud". I hated it from it's very beginning simply because of security, data safety/privacy, and less than perfect reliability/accessibility. I looked at it this way : why should I make regular payments to some outfit that stores my information that's not going to be safe from malfunctions, intrusions, or snooping? That's in danger of privacy breaches, and loss? When I can, and did, invest a not large amount of money, and bought my own NAS that has more than enough capacity for my current, and near future needs for mass data storage, to which I can add capacity to at any time for little money, and there's no recurring monthly payment, unless you count the little bit of electricity electricity that it requires. It's safe from intrusion as only three people have access, it's private, it's safe, and reliable. And, there's never a question of accessibility.
The cloud has already had some pretty spectacular failures just because of major storms. Whole swathes of the country lost subscription services, access to their data, and access to more vital things. And, our own government has been hoodwinked into adopting it! Next on the horizon is you're not even going to own your OS. You'll basically have a "dumb terminal" that relies on the cloud to be at all functional. Look at what Adobe is doing, has done. No more tangible products. It's all on the cloud, and you just pay a monthly fee to access the software.
I want TANGIBLE! Movies, music, software. I don't do downloads, unless I get a disc with the purchase. Period. I don't do iTunes, or any other such service.

 

[Aegean BM]

I hated it from it's very beginning simply because of security, data safety/privacy, and less than perfect reliability/accessibility. I looked at it this way : why should I make regular payments to some outfit that stores my information that's not going to be safe from malfunctions, intrusions, or snooping? That's in danger of privacy breaches, and loss? When I can, and did, invest a not large amount of money, and bought my own NAS that has more than enough capacity for my current, and near future needs for mass data storage, to which I can add capacity to at any time for little money, and there's no recurring monthly payment, unless you count the little bit of electricity electricity that it requires. It's safe from intrusion as only three people have access, it's private, it's safe, and reliable. And, there's never a question of accessibility.
The cloud has already had some pretty spectacular failures just because of major storms. Whole swathes of the country lost subscription services, access to their data, and access to more vital things. And, our own government has been hoodwinked into adopting it! Next on the horizon is you're not even going to own your OS. You'll basically have a "dumb terminal" that relies on the cloud to be at all functional. Look at what Adobe is doing, has done. No more tangible products. It's all on the cloud, and you just pay a monthly fee to access the software.
I want TANGIBLE! Movies, music, software. I don't do downloads, unless I get a disc with the purchase. Period. I don't do iTunes, or any other such service.

Cheaper? Owning your own hardware is only cheaper than cloud if you use it a long time. For example, if cloud is $5/month, and buying the hardware is $200, then you will save money if you use the hardware over 40 months.

More Secure? I have a white hat hacker friend that can park in front of your place and start giving me any of your files in 10 min.

More Reliable? You do daily backups like Amazon or Apple? You have UPS on your server, external drives, and router?

Tangible is better? My Pirates of the Carribean DVD is scratched and won't play. Do you think Disney will give me a free replacement? I dropped the last Harry Potter book in the bathtub. Barnes and Noble will give me a cheap replacement?On the contrary, I have re-downloaded books, music and games FOR FREE!

Major Storms? When Mother Nature takes a dump on your part of the country, you're hosed either way. No power means no power to a cloud server or your local server. Same thing if fire, tornado, avalanche, earthquake, flood wipes out your building. However, I'd bet on better odds of recovering data from a destroyed cloud building than your home.

I can't disagree with your opinions, with your likes and dislikes. Like if you said you like red. How can I dispute that you like red? I have no problem differing. To each is own. But there PROs and CONs for local or cloud. When you only look at PROs for local and CONs for cloud, you've no chance to influence me in your local direction.

 

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Cheaper? Owning your own hardware is only cheaper than cloud if you use it a long time. For example, if cloud is $5/month, and buying the hardware is $200, then you will save money if you use the hardware over 40 months.

More Reliable? You do daily backups like Amazon or Apple? You have UPS on your server, external drives, and router?

The main problems I have with cloud:
1- your internet goes down due to whatever reason, you're screwed
2- you do not have internet access from your current location, you're screwed
3- your cloud provider's network or infrastructure has problems, you're screwed
4- your cloud service gets discontinued, you're screwed
5- etc.

At least, with stuff running on your own device, you have more control over what happens to your devices/apps and do not need to worry anywhere near as much about availability/reliability/speed/latency of internet access.

 

[Aegean BM]

Without the cloud and you're not at home, but you want a resource from home? You're screwed.

However, I do see a common theme of total dependence on vendor and internet. I realize I'm not the cloud purist I thought I was. I like the cloud AND a local copy. Amazon goes down? I can still read my books on Kindle. Dropbox goes down? I still have my files.

Thanks for helping me come to that realization.

 

[InvalidError]

Without the cloud and you're not at home, but you want a resource from home? You're screwed.

My first choice is to bring whatever I need with me so I do not need to rely on availability of internet/cloud wherever I am going.

If I forget something, I can VPN/SSH into my home network if/when that happens. I do not need Amazon/Google/Microsoft/Apple's cloud to do that.

 

[Aegean BM]

If I forget something, I can VPN/SSH into my home network if/when that happens. I do not need Amazon/Google/Microsoft/Apple's cloud to do that.

Well, there you go. You are an expert. You essentially set up your own private cloud. I wouldn't say that's an option for non-experts. I believe the day will come when Windows will do that out of the box, but that day is not this year or the next.

 

[tchahin]

Watch the film Timer, with Justin Timberlake.
I dont like Justin, but the movie gives a nice idea of what can happen with us.
Soon we wont own our own lives and we will have to subscribe/buy time to live.

 

[howard69]

my bet is that Woz would approve of private clouds.
like a Synology or Drobo or some versatile physical
thing running cloud in my world with me at the helm.