The Misunderstood Cloud
No matter where you turn lately, you will see or hear something about the cloud. Whether it is through an advertisement, web search, article, blog, news report or even a movie, the term “The Cloud” is ever present in the public consciousness. In fact, approximately 90% of broadband Internet users have at least heard of the cloud, even though they have no idea what it is really all about. Those who do know what the cloud is about will see its value and choose to use it or decide that it isn’t worth it and pass for one reason or another. They may simply not need it or may be buying into the myths that it is insecure or costly.
Recently, the movie Sex Tape hit theaters with the story of a couple who had a sex tape filmed and synced to the cloud on their iPads. After someone else gets hold of their devices, they are able to see the sex tape and start passing it around. This looks very bad for cloud computing, because after all, if this can happen to Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz, it can happen to us. And what a scary thought that is! Fortunately, this is not true. The cloud just doesn’t work that way and anyone who is technically minded and familiar with how the cloud works would know that and laugh it off as movie entertainment. But others who don’t know any better might take that fear and run with it. As they said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
This Hollywood depiction of a “cloud horror story” can very well be enough to cause people who are unfamiliar with the technology to want to avoid it like the plague, not only if they have sensitive data they don’t want to be exposed to the public, but even more so if they are running a business with several GBs and maybe even TBs of proprietary information, secrets, employee info, etc. But with enough education, more people will hopefully see that these myths are just that: Myths. They will learn to trust the cloud as the safe, secure, convenient and inexpensive solution it really can be.
Out of that 90% of people who know about the cloud, only about 29% of them actually utilize some form of cloud storage or backup, which is less than one third of the people who are familiar that it exists. So why does such a disparity occur in a situation where something is so popular, convenient, and going in the direction of the future, where everything is connected and every file can be accessed from multiple devices? Why aren’t there more people signed up?
The reason this happens is not only because people are uninformed about cloud storage technology, but because the most popular alternatives fall flat when it comes to features, effectiveness and cost savings. The big providers such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Dropbox offer a severely deficient product for too high of a price. After dropping those prices as much as 70% in recent months, they still provide a product that isn’t entirely seen as useful and worth a single dollar of a consumer’s hard earned money.
There are providers out there, however, who offer amazing features and security for an amazingly low price. There are those who are committed to offering the best product possible, who operate for the sole purpose of providing quality cloud services to the general public, both personal users and business users alike. So the best thing we can suggest is, like with any other consumer product, you do your research and examine what the best and smartest choices are before making your decision. If you choose what is popular and fast, it will cost you more in the long run than just extra cash. An informed consumer is more equipped to make the best choices, and cloud storage is no exception. As long as you stick with this method, you will always make the best choices.
