Topic: [ANN] Sia - Decentralized Storage - page 201. (Read 1382196 times)

Not yet, we'll see even bigger drop. Wait bit more and then buy shit ton of SIA.
 

Let it be clear that, in my following statement, I am not bashing the developers, the program, or anyone, as I know they are very diligently working on progress/coding/development/etc. I'm just offering my view as someone who is big into computers, personal data storage (24TB usable, way too close to full), went to a tech school, and can see into the world of the more computer adept and the world of those who just use technology to login to Instagram. I personally love the concept behind Sia and am rooting hard for it to succeed in the long run.

I think there are several barriers to more widespread usage that need to be addressed before we see that utilization we all believe dream of, and I'm going to address the concerns towards normal consumer use right now, so all of the following pertain to people like your mother/father/sister/brother who aren't 1) into crypto and, more importantly, 2) use the computer to check email, Facebook, IG, and play flash games:

Note added at the end: Most, if not all, of the following points reference consumer use and Sias competition vs Google Drive and Dropbox. I do this because I see that most comments about Sia's future revolve around toppling either consumer use of those programs OR enterprise adoption. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the scope of Sia and regular consumer use is not the focus. For now, my focus is on that consumer adoption for use as warm or hot backup and file sharing, not as cold storage or enterprise adoption.

1) Most importantly, ease of set-up and initiation:

Right, to begin storing files on Sia goes like this: Download Sia wallet --> sync entire blockchain (hours to days of time) --> open Coinbase account (wait days+ to get authenticated and activated) --> buy BTC/LC/ETH (instantly or up to a week depending on funding method) --> transfer to Poloniex (or another exchange that trades SC) --> trade for SC at current price (I'll touch on this more later) --> withdraw coins into personal wallet --> Create allowance (and understand that failure to pay may result in loss of data) --> wait for 20+ contracts (variable length of time) --> upload files through client. All-in-all, you're talking about a few days (I forget how long CoinBase/Gemini activation took) to 2 weeks to even begin uploading files. In comparison, starting with no account, you can start uploading to DropBox or Google Drive in 10 minutes if your connection is slow. Yes, the more technically involved people may already have some crypto to exchange, or don't mind the wait if they're going to use it for cold storage/offsite backup, but that's a small group compared to the overall user base of Drive and Dropbox.

To me, the first hurdle is this: making Sia crazy easy to set up: Install wallet, buy SC with fiat directly from the wallet, make blockchain sync wildly faster or unnecessary for initial upload, and allow for upload of files immediately, perhaps some kind of local cache that automatically begins to upload to the Sia network once contract requirements are reached. Once normal consumers can set up Sia as fast/almost as fast as other offline clients, then they might start joining.

2) Second, ease of use:

DB and GD create a local folder that functions like any other folder on your computer that you can manipulate as you are used to (drag-n-drop, delete, rename, open file in place). Sia operates only through the client, making it less convenient for daily use.

I will add to this the note for users like me (shout-out to r/datahoarders) who have higher-than-usual (sane?) amounts of personal storage who are always looking for offsite/cold-storage: some way to auto-synchronize servers worth of data without manual intervention would be huge. Personally, this is why I don't use Sia for offsite/cloud backup: I have 20TB of data across multiple mapped network drives that I will not go through daily/weekly to update with the latest state of my files. I already have SC, I already have exchange accounts, and I've already synced the blockchain. This is my last big hurdle to at least testing adoption for long-term use.

3) Cost of Use

GD and DB have free tiers where small quantities of data may be stored. Sia does not have that. Even if the price/TB is miniscule, people (in my observation) tend to avoid making ANY payment for a subscription unless there is an increased benefit highly relevant to them.

Additionally, there needs to be a convenient way to cancel the contracts. Right now, I'm not even sure how to do that.

4) Method of payment, specifically price fluctuation

Crypto as a whole is extremely volatile right now. Prices fluctuate all the time. This means the cost of the storage is ever-changing. What costs $0.50 right now may be $2 tomorrow because of Sia network utilization and SC price fluctuation. Again, these prices are WAY cheaper than current storage per TB but I don't believe that people will want to put in $10USD for X amount of storage for 2 months and in a month find out that now that's going to cost $20.

In Closing

As I noted above, these issues are all regarding mainstream consumer adoption from those who might migrate from DB/GD/etc. For enterprise adoption, or cold-storage/offsite backup, these may or may not be relevant, and there other issues to consider. I would love to discuss any and all thoughts posed above as I personally love Sia and would love to adopt it fully myself (who doesn't want another 20+TB of network utilization?) and I would absolutely love to see Sia take off.

As a last aside, thank you to all of the developers and supporters, I know you're busting your asses and I look forward to this crazy ride.

Why are you saying bigger drop
its already done with dropping and i think it hit bottom with that

If that's true, you're crazy :asd:

Perfect time to buy some SC. Bought last night SC for 2.300€. Don't miss your chance guys to earn good profit.

LOL @0gantia, I am precisely working on a website showing all those Sia stats and metrics (30+ charts). It will be ready in 7-10 days if everything goes well, stay tunned. In the meantime, we have this graph from the last official tri-annual report (https://blog.sia.tech/sia-may-august-2017-update-8929f21c56f7):





No, they haven't said anything about selling their portion, as that would mean the end of the incentive to keep improving the adoption. There has been some debate I the past about making SFs divisible or not. Nothing definitive has been stated

Perfect time to buy some SC. Bought last night SC for 2.300€. Don't miss your chance guys to earn good profit.

Thers has been no race created in which Sia had been defeated.

Hi,

Can we find somewhere a chart about the time growth fo SIA user and Mo upload ?

I like this project, one of the rare that justifies existance of his coin and with a real market to eat

That's really intriguing. Thx
I'm more interested in siafunds now. Has Nebulous mentioned anything about selling their portion at any point and/or possibly making them divisible to be sold in smaller units?

131 sat at the moment, not sure we can go any lower ... I bought some few days ago, i should have waited :p

Not form hosts, but from the renter's money used to form the file contracts (the allowance). A 3.9% of the whole file contract cost is deducted from the allowance and paid to SiaFunds holders. SF is a second coin in the network (https://siawiki.tech/wallet/siafund). From the total 10000SF, 8851 are owned by Nebulous and the rest was sold 2 years ago in the initial IPO. As Siacoins were never strictly pre-mined (only the first 100 blocks), SFs are the only income source of Nebulous, and a tool to encourage them to work for increasing the adoption of Sia, as they will not be really profitable until the use of the network increases.