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It's good that people are doing this but this quote is an impediment: "The price is OK but it keeps going up, and so do our data storage requirements, what with all the cameras in the family. "

Most of the people on this forum can easily pay for Google storage which is de minimus for even heavy users. If we want to find alternatives and create an ecosystem of options for tech products we have to be willing to pay. If we don't pay then these alternative products will never get beyond the early adopter (us) phase.

4 comments

Why make such a blanket statement? The actual solution is selfhosting, short term for power users, long term everyone. You don't need to pay someone to host your services. In a world where Immich or OSM exists, why trumpet the idea of replacing Google with another company that can become user-hostile any time.

Self-hosting with the same availability/durability/security profile as Google would not be any cheaper (probably not more expensive either) - which is my point. His goal is to get off of Google and the other big tech providers for a multitude of (good) reasons but saving money is a red-herring that isn't just distracting but an unrealistic rationale that works against the other rationales.

Storage is far cheaper than most providers charge for it. Especially for things like photo libraries where the high res originals can probably be written to 1.1 hard drives in a basement somewhere (or maybe even tape) at a cost of <1 cent per GB/month.

However, the storage also pays for the engineering costs of building the product, and the economics of that tends to work out far better with billions of users than with thousands of users.

Tim Bray does not emphasize or advocate an unwillingness to pay, just seeking reasonable price point vs. aspects that make him uncomfortable (the data harvesting). Which will differ for everyone depending on their financial means. If you can afford it then paying a bit more for a 'healthier' alternative is great, to support and stimulate the market for those alternatives.

I don't think "impediment" means what you think it means.

Regardless, Tim Bray is writing on his own personal blog, not on HN. His opinions are his own and he's welcome to them.

It's totally cool to just say that his assessment doesn't fit your circumstances without any blaming, shaming, or saying he's . . . using Google wrong(?).