Why those high prices in cloud storage provider?

🗃️ Hosting providers
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I don’t understand.
I’m going to give some context here.
So at hosting solution of 1TB at webo.hosting is 1000 euros a year.
at hostiso is 800 euros a year.

dropbox is 99 euros a year…

look for the problem ^^

So where is the problem ? Is it a licence fee problem?
a datacenter HDD who can run several years at 7200RPM 8TB is 400 euros.

shadow.tech is 32 euros a month and for that you get a whole xeon computer with 12GB of RAM and a 1080 graphic card + 256 GB + 1TB
even at ovh a 1TB vps is around the same price.

So why do we need to pay 1K euros for 1 TB for cloud storage where everyone is stroing photos, videos etc.

Is it a way to push people to buy hard disk and host themselves? to push people to use less secure cloud storage like google etc?
I really don’t get the point here…

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The price makes a difference if you install and manage Nextcloud yourself or need a managed solution.

You can buy a rootserver from a Hoster for a low price and install Nextcloud. Then you have to do everything yourself, updates, backups, troubleshooting …

The cheapest hoster is Hetzner, but have no backup, no Collabora office and no own domain. But the price is incredible!

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And how much is hetzner ?

And I can understand the argument about more work to do so more pricy.

BUT…

But that’s the whole story of internet. The goal has always been: share to divide the nécessary work.

That’s why, you pay very minimal price in percentage of your usage of internet câble (submarine fibre optics, subterrean,…) on the total amount of your ISP proforma.
That’s why you pay bigger price for a dedicated server at ovh than a shared one.
You always pay bigger price when you use an hardware only for yourself or if you’re sharing this hardware with others…

I’m sorry but I fail to understand how automated processes as backup ( which Dropbox does do too, unless you are speaking of différent kind of process), and the lonely use of 1TB of a raid which is certainly shared among many other users has to be more pricy than your dedicated vps.
You can run multiple nextcloud instances as WordPress instances. That doesn’t require you put in place one setup équipement for one user.

And what would actually require the action of an IT technician every day of the year for 10 minutes? I don’t see one single action which is not automatically launched.

So if you would care to explain to me more completely why this change of paradigm in the whole internet concept, it would be great…
Or am I missing the fact that only one next cloud instance can go on one of your xeon rack ?

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As it goes for other providers we cannot comment but as far as Webo.hosting goes we can shed some light for you. As you might know, we are not a giant corporation like Dropbox or Google and to put it simply we cannot afford to compete with their prices. But you must know we are offering private cloud storage and we do not make any money from collecting and reselling data nor do we get any money from ads. We rely only on our customer’s payments for our products and this is how it should be if we want to offer private and secure storage for your data.

Your calculations are not really comparable. We do know that a lot of providers do not provide free backup. But all our plans (except dedicated servers) include full free backup on a remote location and we store 7 daily backups, 4 weekly backups, 3 monthly backups. So as you can imagine this is a lot of backup space for your cloud especially if you fully use 1 TB cloud, therefore we must have few TB of space reserved only for you, so it’s not only the space you ordered in question. And don’t forget that we offer multiple pre-enabled apps such as Collabora and Onlyoffice and they require the additional servers to run. After all, besides the hardware cost, you must also consider staff costs, we do offer 24/7 free support and of course we need to pay our staff. Yes, you can host cloud by your self, but the point of going with hosting company is that we take care of everything from Nextcloud updates, system updates, fixing any issues you might have, etc.

So, all in all, it is not just the hardware cost that determine the end price, like you are trying to compare. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes to make everything running.
And don’t forget, if you are a business, you need fast and reliable support 24/7 no matter if its a holiday, weekend, whatever…

After all, we could offer much cheaper solution, but without backups, Collabora, Onlyoffice and other or we could just adopt a Google business model and make money from your data and/or play adds. Our services would be cheaper that way indeed. But this is just the opposite of what we stand for and we strongly believe the internet should not be like that. We are aware that our prices are not low, but trust us, we are doing everything in our power to lower the prices as much as we can, but not on the cost of quality of our service or other important things.

Hope this sheds some light on the situation. Besides we don’t belong in special treatment tax group like giants do. :grin:

Cheers from Webo.hosting

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If you cannot afford the price for 1TB at webo.hosting, it’s not the end of the world.

You can go Dropbox and GDrive but you will loose your privacy.
You can built your own nextcloud by hosting it your self, configuring it, making backups, learning how to do that.

The freedom have a price. You can pay for having it, or learn how to be free (but it is time consuming, and time is money). Choice will always be yours.

You can follow some tutorials, videos how to install and use Nextcloud. You can also use Virtual Machine VM already pre-built.

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I know how to do that that’s not the point of my advocacy here and you completely missed it actually.

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well i think it’s all said here…
someone asked a polemic question and got an sane answer.

someone else put out that noone is forced to buy such a service if he doesn’t want/need it.

and that’s it. nothing more to say.

i, personally, don’t see the point to discuss that point any further in this forum. it’s nothing that has to do with nextcloud, itself.

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To finish :
Again, this providers won’t never compete with dropbox and co. Even with a much better automatisation of processes (installations - backup - billing etc) because in front of them they have companies that make profits of your data, your sharing links etc…
Even with the free quota of 2GB, dropbox makes money on you.

They have already so much profits incomes, that cost of Hard Drives and Internet links is nothing compare to the part of market they have

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So @Webo.Hosting . I’ve actually reviewed Hezner prices and this is actually competitive.
If, and I will insist on the if here because I’m pretty sure that you are not loosing money in this, it’s not like you are running a non profit.
So okey you are providing a full package, even if you are not giving a lot of details but okey.
Hezner is… let me verify… it’s 8 euros a month. That’s competitive. And for what I’m seeing in all the documentation, they don’t rely on ads or anything like that.
I don’t know how you see society and how you would like it to be but I have a pretty good idea on how to achieve it. And for that you need to be active and propose reachable solutions for everyone.
Unless you see yourself as a niche product ? And you only appoint yourself to those that can afford your services ? If you do think like that, let me stop you right there because I can give you plenty of companies who did think like that and who’ve been dead in the water because of market changes.

So let me propose you a deal. Since one way of people reaching out to you is through the nextcloud interface, why would you not put in place a customization subscription page ? We both know that all of you’ve said earlier are mostly automatic processes which need to be verified from time to time, correct, but does not need active maintenance daily for each and everyone of the users. But you need to pay for the customer support h24, that’s indeed something costly. So I’m not denying your costs here.
But what if,

  • you propose the different services into option with the supplemental cost it requires you to do.
  • you customize the support requests like mailbox.org, proxmox does or others where you can only requests supports for a certain amount a month or a year
  • you propose different amount of backups that the user can select according to the money he has at that moment.

And I’m sure we could come up with other solutions like that.
Yes it requires some more php or js code on your javascript page and maybe some more field in your database. And yes it means that your automatic processes would need to be a bit more granular than just a script of hundred lines long for everything to set up.

But my vision of society is that progressively more and more people will be able to put more thoughts into where they put their data and progressively the EU will ask to the OS dev to stop the monopoly on their platform about cloud backup solutions etc.
And all of that means that students will need storage solutions, teachers, average workers which only earn 1200 euros average a month should I remind you in the western countries, agriculture workers who earn way less than that etc.
Or maybe you marketeer the fact that only big devOps and company would want to do that?

And now why would I ask that?
Did you geolocate yourself in Paris or Brussels and open your nextcloud app to open an account recently ? Because I have. The closest to Brussels it’s Amsterdam. For Paris it’s Roubaix. There aren’t that many solution around here actually. Most of them are in Germany or in Switzerlands. Where there are actually Belgian datacenter and even in Paris there are since there are famous company like OVH there. I’m pretty sure for example there are way much solutions in the US or the UK and should I put some lights on the number ? The total population of the EU is the double from the US. And most of those people won’t need a full package.

But all of that is of course only if you really care about the social goals of this whole thing and of course if you care about your economic growth.

If shadow.tech which is way smaller than you are both can do it, there is absolutely no reason why you would not be able to do it.
Plus if I’m not mistaken, you are a Slovenian company right ? And if I’m not mistaken either the minimum wage there is around 900-700 €, so don’t you want your students and other workers go your way in place of the Dropbox or google drive way?

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@Nemskiller
Hetzner is competitive with Dropbox. So your point is not valid here. If you don’t see how they can be competitive, I can really enlighten you for that matter since I’m working in this field.

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@JimmyKater is that not the sub forum for provider ?
Or am I mistaken? If I’m not I don’t see any reason to not talk about that and shed some lights on it.

We are talking about hetzner too on this subforum which is not in the provider list. For a simple reason actually since you are not registered by your mail in their database by the way but by a client number.
So I don’t see why we would not be able to enlarge the debate to enlighten the public too about those questions.

And I don’t see how it would be a polemic question, I wanted to understand their point of view on that matter. And even more now since it seems that other companies who have the same business model can totally reach the goal of doing the same pricing but in a different way of making business.

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this argument (“enlighten”) is too cheap to be really valid. plus: you got a sane answer to your question. so you already should be enlightend.

for me it looks like: you consider the pricing-model of some hoster as too expensive. ok. but it’s unclear what exactly you wanna achieve with this discussion. what’s your point? if you think this hoster offers his service for toop much money - then that’s your opinion. that’s ok. you already put that out.
if you’re out for a special rebate - please address directly to that service.

and again: said hoster even replied why HE thinks it’s ok.

i would like to add (again): everyone is allowed to run his own business the way he wants to run it - which, of course, includes the pricing of the product/services he offers. and noone is forced to buy something he doesn’t want or he considers too expensive.

i think it just doesnt make any sense to discuss that point further, here.

further on i think it’s unpolite to discuss 3rd party pricing at a forum that has nothing to do with that service. if you wanna go ahread with the discussion i think you could do so on every other forum in the world as well - or do it personally via email or whatsoever.

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@JimmyKater
Fair enough.
So you are one of those who do thinks we should’nt ever discuss business decision of others. Good for you.
Just to clarify, it’s one but several hosting services that I’ve mentioned. Not only webo.

And if I infringed the rules of this forum, I would like to apologize and that someone appointed to me the specific line here it is written.
I don’t think that ethically I have done so. We are discussing about a package that is based on the platform of this forum. Nothing as direct than that in my opinion. And other forums doesn’t talk about nextcloud.But again feel free to think otherwise.

Just a side note, you pretty well know that those kind of remarks to a support center is not fed back the chain of command so don’t act like you would actually believe that. I don’t know you but I’ve worked as that and it doesn’t work that way.

And since you are inviting me to clarify my point… If you don’t confront people or businesses or pushing them to make them explain why they do what they do the way they do it, with what is done elsewhere + a little bit of big picture => you end up with examples like in the TV show of silicon Valley with absurd business decision to put the whole thing in a overpriced box.
But again if the goal of nextcloud is not to democratized the cloud storage with an automated, secure, privacy by essence solution, then I apologize.

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webo already did that. they explained why they think their prices are ok.

in general that’s none of YOUR business. but then again: if YOU think it’s overpriced it’s your right to put that out. wherever you want to. you could even file a case at the courtyard around your corner if you want to or complain at the busdriver or whatever runs your mind. but it won’t change one of the basic rules of the businessworld: everyone can run their business the way the want to. THEY alone are responsible for the outcome of their decisions.

i don’t think you have done so… but as i said: i don’t see any sense in keep discussing the subject any further. you already made it very clear that you think it’s overpriced. ok. so what now? you reached your point.

you are mistaken in many ways.

  1. nextcloud is an open source software. everyone can take part in it. it’s open for everyone. nextcloud (the software) isn’t responsible for any business-model that grows around it and nor can be held responsible for it.
  2. nextcloud inc., a company offering services around nextcloud (the software) is neither responsible for any kind other service/business that’s growing around nextcloud, the software.
  3. the goal of ‘nextcloud’ the software is: offering a solution for a(nother) (private) cloud-solution
  4. the goal of ‘nextcloud’, inc. is: earning money with the services they offer around the software.
    5: any other goal might not be intended.

you have gotten this completely wrong. this is the free community-led user-forum of nextcloud. if you’re lucky enough you’d meet someone helping you with your technical issues. those helpers are not paid by nextcloud to help you. those persons do help you because it’s their share to pay back for the efforts that someone else invested into the code of nextcloud. they usually do this without being forced to do so but on a volountary level. if you want or need real support you could go and buy it from nextcloud, inc.

ya. i am. since it’s a discussion without sense and meaning.
if you want to discuss any price of any business in the world go and do it directly with the company which is offering said product/service, directly. it makes no sense trying to discuss it with other ppl. e.g. go and discuss the pricing of windows10, of a ferrari, of a building, whatever etc. of course you could discuss it with everyone you like and you might even meet ppl thinking the absolute same about it… but it won’t change anything. the company itself makes the prices and not ppl (it might be different in north corea where the companies are owned by “the people”).

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