Image Credit: Alex Zarnoski
The cloud has a plug that's waiting to be pulled. Whether you like it or not, you'll all one day be subjected to the cloud and one day it’ll eat your lunch money. Your digital data are ghosts that manifest over here and disappear into nothingness over there. Digital media including music, movies, TV shows, eBooks, audio books, and video games will someday become digital ghosts and there’s not a thing that can be done to stop it.
Scenario 1: The Ever Evolving Movie Format
How convenient. I just sat down to watch a movie and I didn’t have to dig through my DVD or Blu-ray collection because I recently donated my entire movie collection to the cloud via Vudu’s Disc to Digital replacement program. That donation was in the form of digital currency (the USD) and it subtracted some virtual numbers from my physical-esque bank account. So now I can stream <insert film title> in beautiful 1080p.
What’s that, Fido? You just heard on a technology show that at this year’s CES, UHD is taking over. So, instead of watching my favorite films in a resolution of 1920x1080px I can really, really enjoy them in double the resolution of 4096 x 2304px? Automatically you should be thinking: How much is it going to cost me to upgrade my cloud-based HD library? Will I be biggering my television set next month in order to take full advantage of 4K?
What’s that, Fido? You just heard on a technology show that at this year’s CES, UHD is taking over. So, instead of watching my favorite films in a resolution of 1920x1080px I can really, really enjoy them in double the resolution of 4096 x 2304px? Automatically you should be thinking: How much is it going to cost me to upgrade my cloud-based HD library? Will I be biggering my television set next month in order to take full advantage of 4K?
Scenario 2: The Vanishing App Trick
Last month I spent some quality time with an old friend: my custom built PC. I discovered that I was stuck with a C:\ drive filled to the rim with digital crap. So I cleaned and scrubbed and couldn’t come up with enough space for the content I wanted to install.
After tiresome digging, I realized that iTunes was consuming 48GB of valuable space. 25 of those gigabytes were apps! I thought, “Hey you! You have that wonderful iCloud that you’ve been relying on for the past year or so. Why don’t you go ahead and delete some apps?” That little voice in my head was right. It gave me enough room to install RAGE, Mass Effect, and Trine 2. I even squeezed in Hotline Miami. Thank Jobs for iCloud...
A week passed.
I was making my rounds on AppShopper looking for sweet deals as usual and I discovered that 1Password had updated their app. However, what I was looking for was called 1Password Pro as it had always been. It had appeared that the developers decided to merge different versions of the app into one cohesive bundle. I figured that since I previously downloaded and owned the Pro version, that I’d be entitled to the same version of the app.
Wrongo!
I was s#!t out of luck. Their new app cost $17.99 and that would cost me $17.99. Worse yet, I forgot my master password a few weeks ago and had been meaning to uninstall and reinstall 1Password Pro. Instead I’ll be forced to go backwards from post PC to PC and backup my old version of 1Password Pro manually instead of using good ol' iCloud.
What would you do next? I complained. So I composed a nice review for AgileBits, the dev-team behind 1Password:
After tiresome digging, I realized that iTunes was consuming 48GB of valuable space. 25 of those gigabytes were apps! I thought, “Hey you! You have that wonderful iCloud that you’ve been relying on for the past year or so. Why don’t you go ahead and delete some apps?” That little voice in my head was right. It gave me enough room to install RAGE, Mass Effect, and Trine 2. I even squeezed in Hotline Miami. Thank Jobs for iCloud...
A week passed.
I was making my rounds on AppShopper looking for sweet deals as usual and I discovered that 1Password had updated their app. However, what I was looking for was called 1Password Pro as it had always been. It had appeared that the developers decided to merge different versions of the app into one cohesive bundle. I figured that since I previously downloaded and owned the Pro version, that I’d be entitled to the same version of the app.
Wrongo!
I was s#!t out of luck. Their new app cost $17.99 and that would cost me $17.99. Worse yet, I forgot my master password a few weeks ago and had been meaning to uninstall and reinstall 1Password Pro. Instead I’ll be forced to go backwards from post PC to PC and backup my old version of 1Password Pro manually instead of using good ol' iCloud.
What would you do next? I complained. So I composed a nice review for AgileBits, the dev-team behind 1Password:
$18 for something I previously owned? This proves that iCloud is broken and we're all living in Apple's walled garden, which I love btw.
Yes, it's AgileBits choice (fault) that they swept Pro under the rug. EA quietly pulls the plug on their apps, why shouldn't the little guy do the same?
Archiving apps on a "post PC" device is never going to be safe. NEVER. That's why users still need physical media or a physical place away from the cloud to store their data. If I hadn't recently cleared my drive of the plus 25 gigs of app data, I'd still "own" 1Password Pro. My fault for relying on the cloud I suppose.
NEVER rely on any cloud when you know the plug could be pulled at any moment.
Had I actually purchased the app, I would have been able to post this review. Policy states that you must own an app before writing a review (rightly so).
So how does one compare the cloud itself to a real life situation? You can’t. You pick one of your favorite films of all time and have it do all the work. I’m choo-choo-choosing Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984).
You can compare the cloud and its data to an ever-growing pile of ectoplasm. You have to trap it somewhere–glass jars or laser containment systems will do. But when Walter Peck comes a knockin’ not even Peter Venkman or the good sense of Egon Spengler can stop him. He’s an environmentalist with an agenda:
“Shut these off. Shut this all off....either you shut off these beams or we shut them off for you.”
Sure, if citizens captured their own ghosts and personally stored them, there would consequently be a safety net. Of course people would have to share these ghosts like pokemon if we want to continue this analogy. We’d have something like GhostTorrent on our hands. If everyone decides to have the Ghostbusters store their ghosts for them (yes I’m talking about your digital media) in one giant laser containment system, the ghosts that they store can potentially be genetically altered or removed without notice.
The only thing that will expel from our rooftops (if you watched the video you'll understand this) will be the heat from our intense rage when somebody decides to pull the plug. Not only can individual content be altered, the entire cloud itself can disappear. If for example, Dropbox, Pogoplug, or Box decide to close their doors, that’s it man. Take your stuff and move along. Put it on your own physical drives. Store it in a safe. Give your favorite family photos burned on a DVD to a friend for safekeeping. Carbonite, Mozy, and the like are no better. They are the cloud. They take your personal digital items and set them aside for “safekeeping" and for a fee.
The cloud’s plug will be yanked by someone or something at some point. It’s simply inevitable. So I’ll leave you with some great advice, which is standard practice: Back up your digital content in at least three places. Don’t rely on the cloud because poof...
Written By: Alex Zarnoski
The only thing that will expel from our rooftops (if you watched the video you'll understand this) will be the heat from our intense rage when somebody decides to pull the plug. Not only can individual content be altered, the entire cloud itself can disappear. If for example, Dropbox, Pogoplug, or Box decide to close their doors, that’s it man. Take your stuff and move along. Put it on your own physical drives. Store it in a safe. Give your favorite family photos burned on a DVD to a friend for safekeeping. Carbonite, Mozy, and the like are no better. They are the cloud. They take your personal digital items and set them aside for “safekeeping" and for a fee.
The cloud’s plug will be yanked by someone or something at some point. It’s simply inevitable. So I’ll leave you with some great advice, which is standard practice: Back up your digital content in at least three places. Don’t rely on the cloud because poof...
Written By: Alex Zarnoski
