"The Cloud" scares me...

Call me crazy, call me an idiot, call me paranoid, call me whatever the heck you want. The Cloud scares the living crap out of me. No not "The Cloud" the feature, "The Cloud" the evil beast.

See I'm for "The Cloud" as a feature, you know like the PSN storage for saves. This use of "The Cloud" is great. Seriously I think the theory of an option for backup stored on the web is the best idea for PC's and online enabled consoles.

The part of "The Cloud" that scares me is the future that's coming for it. See if you've even seen that Google Chrome OS computer that is a cloud computing system you may have a vague idea why I'm scared. See what you may not know is that "The Cloud" can and will be the future of computing and here's what's going to happen. The PC will eventually be nothing but iPads and everyone's version as well as netbooks "Cloud Books" if you prefer that have no storage for anything except the glorified web browser OS but that's not the bad part, let me get to that.

You see if "The Cloud" evolves the way I predict, you know hard drives and flash drives? GONE! No physical back ups of data, which also means that if the server dies, your data dies. Not scared? Well if you have no back up and they have no back up you wasted money, lost important data and chances are there will be no compensation.

Then there's the fact that everything will be subscription run. Your OS, subscription. Your editing program, subscription. Your drawing program(eg Corel), subscription. You get the drift right? Essentially no credit or debit card or no money, no Cloud PC and since you paid for the unit itself that's unfair right? Yeah, see paying for a monthly subscription for a game is one thing but paying just to turn on a PC is just wrong but it WILL happen and considering your bill are emailed to you and will probably only be able to be paid online you can't use electricity, gas, water, food, etc. Also it will become way more expensive in under this model they will choose.

You know the videos, the music and and games you enjoy on PC? Well you know how we have region locking at the moment with DVDs, Blurays and video games? Yeah they'll be worse because VPNs will no longer be an option and people like me will be screwed. Sure piracy and hacking will die but you'll miss out one games you want to play, the music will be restricted to whatever crap is chosen to be released and you can't watch say, True Blood unless you live in the US. Speaking of games, no more mods for games.

What about privacy? Think of that? Well if "The Cloud" come privacy is no more because everything will be public. See the thing is security will actually suffer greatly due to full internet integration. Thing well get harder to block and viruses will roam more free then ever.

Then there's the internet connection. See until the internet runs like water at a steady flow for all instead of laggy like it is today, we'll never be able to make the most of "The Cloud" in the future form it will take. Think about playing say Fallout 5 via "The Cloud and the net drops before a 2 hour run could be saved or even worse... in the middle of saving and corrupts you save.

Also what about the OS of Cloud PC's? You see since it will be just a web browser with apps, you can't use say Firefox(my personal favourite browser) to browse the web and then there's the fact that certain apps won't work on Mac Cloud OS that work on Windows Cloud OS or Google Chrome and so on. Sure we have that already but we can't patch it to work.

This is just a sample of what can happen and what I fear most. I'm sure there a boat load of possibilities that are positive but I'm not seeing them. "The Cloud" should just be a feature or an option, not the only thing. There's a high chance what I predict is coming but hey, if I'm wrong then I'll except the ridicule. The big question is when will it come? I guess between 10 and 15 years personally.

[zero_gamer]

No offense, but why is everyone thinking we are all doomed to cloud computing? Is everyone on this planet really that stupid enough to entrust all their sensitive data to a corporation's data framework full of security holes? Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I have heard similar talk about this in the 90s with Larry Ellison and his ilk talking the death of PCs and everyone will be using thin clients, much like his Network Computer which failed. Fast forward to our new decade and we're talking about the death of PCs again for a thin client future. We have been hearing the tired old "PC gaming is dying" propaganda since the 1980s. We're in 2011 and PC is still thriving. We are also still hearing the tired old "PC gaming is dying" like a broken record.

The cloud will probably be just a huge feature on the internet. It may be the future of the internet, websites, online games, MMOs, etc. But it will likely not replace our desktop setup.

[SKUD]

Reading the fine print is key. Most companies declare the data there's also since you are using there storage systems. If legal issues hit. There's nothing stopping them from handing over your data. I don't think the CLOUD will go very far. At least not with me.

[SilentNegotiator]

My hope is that communism (with a new name), cloud technology, and brain control won't fully bloom until I'm well dead. lol

[Ingram]

IBM Kittyhawk is what should scare you, lad.

[PsycheMax]

Well, there's one problem in your vision of the future:

Nvidia
Intel
AMD-ATI
HP - Compaq
Sony - PC brand
Dell
Asus
Kingston
Trust

And EVERY other HARDWARE producer will not be satisfied, trust me, to sell a silly Web-Interface only. They have not built 10-20-30 years of brand image to send it to death only to make Cloud-Sys sell.
I think that: "idiot" user, no tech-savvy, ignoramus about the magic world of technology will appreciate Cloud System, but MY slice of market will not eat it without problem. Not until internet will be WORLDWIDE, constant, super fast-er and in EVERYONE'S life, even in African-children life.

Opinions, like yours.

Sorry for the english, It's not my first language.

[ultimablackmage]

Computers will still sell but the OS will be just a glorified web browser. Also Google already has a cloud PC so nothing is stopping Microsoft starting a hardware division for cloud PCs and Apple will make a cloud PC very soon and everyone will jump on it like the next iPhone and iPad.

There may be a chance that the cloud PCs cloud turn out to be a more mixed bag instead of just using "The Cloud" but I'll stay skeptical on it.

[PsycheMax]

Well, they have made so much sillyness way back in the hi-tech story.
I think you are wrong about it, no one working with HIS computer, like a writer, a CGI artist, a 3d modeler, a programmer and so on, will work WEB-BASED only. That's unrealistic. Or, at least, unrealistic until the whole world is covered with fast web-connections.

[n to the b]

aside from the bit about backups of saved data, agree 100%. MS have taught me not to trust companies as far as digital content.

I paid for more than will fit on my 360's hard drive with the expectation I could always re-download later as long as MS still has the license. now that I've already put down my $$, the deal's been changed so that I can only download 5 times max. and if I have a prob with that then tough sh1t - can't continue to go online without the game-changing updates.

or how about when I paid for some dashboard themes for the old blades dash? well we decided to change the entire dash and no, you can't continue to go online without accepting our update. too bad for you.

maybe these issues seem minor to you. but it just seems to me I keep getting privileges stripped away a little piece at a time. it's not what I signed up for, but what does the company care? they've already got my $$.

so yeah.

[coryok]

you can always take advantage of your own servers that you could set up in a closet in your house.

if you dont want to use googles servers, dont; set up a small server in your closet that networks all of your information together for you.

the subscription model may be what a few companies take advantage of, but i doubt that it will be as mainstream as you think. if one company wont do it, another company will, open source will always be available, and in many cases will be superior to anything that a software company can offer you.

you dont want to pay a subscription to photoshop? use gimp. dont want to pay for 3d modeling tools? use blender. dont want to pay for microsoftoffice? use openoffice (more recently libreoffice). dont like internet explorer? use firefox or chrome. dont like windows? use linux.

the world is moving towards open software development, which is free for the enduser, putting software at an off location site wont stop this. no doubt companies like microsoft who havnt been able to transition from their business model to the open business model will use it in an effort to tie you to their products, but its just not going to work.

as you need less hardware in your computers, prices will drop until the most expensive piece of your computer is the software that microsoft offers - how can this business model continue to work when other companies are offering you software that has the same functions, but theyre offering it to you for free?

[ultimablackmage]

Well it may be true but considering how much Internet freedom is being taken away by companies and legislation, that could even get outlawed.

The subscription model is already in effect if you look at things like PC security. If you want it for more then a year from retail purchase you need to throw down more money just to stay protected. Also did you forget about Xbox Live and the fact that to play online with PCs with the next Windows you'll need to join that? We call that "baby steps".

Creating your own servers could work but you'd have to use old tech in the future and it will be hard to sustain it once parts are discontinued for what you're using. As for other options I doubt the free alternative would work on a cloud PC with almost no storage on the damn thing. Plus the OS companies could and most likey will lock out access to alternatives like Firefox, Gimp, etc. on their cloud PCs.

There's almost a certain chance that "The Cloud" will kill open sourcing. If it doesn't I will go open source.

[coryok]

outlawing people from connecting to your own hardware...? it doesnt make sense and would be completely illogical, also quite impossible to enforce.

yes, companies like microsoft will try and force you into places like this, its because they havnt been able to transition from their paid model to an open source model. but companies like google are letting you do whatever you want, they are pioneering in open source and encouraging people to do things on their own. baby steps, yes, forced, no - if you dont want the service you can always use an alternative.

you'll never have to use old tech for your servers, servers will always be widely available, and so will the individual parts, i built a server largely from old computer parts that i had sitting around, it may not be as energy efficient as some of the IBM ones, but it works perfectly fine as a server for my purposes. its not very expensive to build your own server. (btw servers wont only be widely available, they will be standard in most houses that are built soon, accompanied by a mainframe)

and theres also zero possibility that operating system owners will be able to stop you from using open source. if they try you can switch to linux, which is an operating system that competes against windows, its open source, free, and available for download right now. like 90% of the worlds servers are ran on linux, so you cant block linux operating systems from being connected to either.

open source will never die lol, its there, ANYONE can open up the file, change whatever they want in it, and use it for whatever purposes they want. if microsoft makes changes and puts something into their microsoft office suite programs, libre office can be individually edited to have the same code as microsofts office. it happened before with the opera web browser, companies tried to kill it by not allowing their websites to be connect to any opera web browser, but instead, 4 days after the companies switched over to not allowing opera on their web pages, opera released a patch and now it can run in either firefox or ie compatibility mode. that is that it tricks the webbrowser into thinking that its firefox or ie. even today, many companies arent letting opera run their webpage scripts, but because of operas compatibility modes opera is still one of the worlds most used web browsers.

in short, any software that you can get from microsoft, you can get for free from a competing open source group, and short from superman proclaiming that he will kill everyone who tries, you'll always be able to connect your own hardware to whatever you want to connect it to.

[Mr_Lu_Kim]

"Call me crazy, call me an idiot, call me paranoid, call me whatever the heck you want."

The author summed this blog up right there in the first sentence.

[n to the b]

thanks. that was constructive.

[JellyJelly]

I'm afraid of Facebook :(