(quoted from post at 10:09:44 10/18/17)
(quoted from post at 06:25:27 10/18/17) All around the 'net I see blank spots on various Forums where helpful information has been lost (probably for good) due to corporate greed. Thousands and THOUSANDS of archived posts on hobbyist and "do it yourself" Forums have been rendered useless by the loss of pertinent information, those threads may as well be purged, thrown away. WHAT a loss of knowledge, all through a click of the corporate mouse!
Yes, I understand photobucketofcrap was a FREE service, and at the whim of it's owners, but what a LOW, dirty blow, signing up free users, making us watch their *$&^%$ ads to use their "service" then taking a 180? turn and charging, BIG time to be able to post the information we laboriously uploaded, not to mention taking away access to what we'd already posted.
Sure, folks making use of the service PROFESSIONALLY perhaps can afford to pay bucket's ransom price, but for us using it as a hobby medium their fees are ridiculous.
GREEDY CORPORATE BA$$TARDS! Then, the industry pushes for "cloud computing and storage", and renting software. No thanks!
So you are now complaining that something that you got for free is now a pay for service. Interesting.
So lets try this. You have been giving free hay baling, tillage, crop growing for folks in your county. You have done this for several years and no one has given you any donations to pay for your fuel, equipment maintenance or equipment replacement. Now your equipment is worn out and requires replacement. Suddenly you present all of your customers with a large invoice and expect to collect for your services to continue. These same customers now start complaining that what they were getting for free is now costing them what they consider to be an arm and a leg. They are like you crying "NOT FAIR".
Let me ask this question. Would it be fair to you to not get paid for a service you are rendering? I am willing to venture that your answer is going to be "No".
Let's take a look at the folks that provide free hosting services on the WEB.
1- Do you think that the infrastructure to host these services is free? I can assure you it is not just like equipment you would have to buy in the example above is not free.
2- Do you think the maintenance of that equipment is free? Again I know it is not as I was the guy doing that maintenance for over 25 years.
3- Do you think the data center floor space is free that houses that equipment? Again it is not. If you wanted to use someones barn to house your equipment would you expect them to let you use that square footage for free?
4- Do you think the power that feeds that infrastructure is free? Is your electricity for your home provided for free? I would guess not.
Your thinking here is way off base.. The same type of thinking that most here complain about on a regular basis.
If you think I am wrong try this experiment. Take your farm equipment and do like the example I provided above. Go plow all the crop fields in your county, brush cut every place that needs it, plant all the crops in those fields you plowed, provide all the weed control and fertilizer for those same crops. Then harvest those crop giving all proceeds to the land owner. Let me know how long it takes you to go broke. Will you do this? I seriously doubt it as you will be crying but this is different! No it is not.
Do you really think those that provide free services can do so forever? They cannot. Servers and high end storage are very expensive and expensive to run. An example is that high end fast storage of 500 petabytes usable capacity is around $3.5M and slower at same capacity is around $1.8M. I could provide proof as I am the tech side of sales that created the BOM that was used for the pricing, but I will not so as not to let my competition know specs.
Most of these companies that provide these free services are doing so for two main reasons:
One is to find out is there a market for this type of service. Then if good charge for it. If not shut it down.
Two is let people use it and get their feedback for product development and once that development has been completed then make it a fee for service.
If this stance gets me flamed, makes me un-popular or gets me banned so be it. Just getting tired of all the "Give Me More & I want it for FREE" people.