Concerns and Indefinite Strike Regarding Operator Payments

[Ruskiem]

@BrightSilence

A reputational hit of the Storj public network will hurt everyone and demanding Storj Labs to take a loss on every TB stored is simply not realistic.

but @BrightSilence, the time to take action in well needed changes was months ago, and STORJ inc. just showed, they don’t want to do necessary changes to the model, and now they have results. They didn’t want to do whats need to be done, in order to avoid situation like this.

Maybe people were silent, because many others already spoke the stand!?
(I read all the 1300+ posts, and there were enough said.)
Now, look what Alexey just replied to a great comment in main thread.

@Alexey

@alfatarsos

in predictability grounds, pricing per held TB should be increased, to somewhere between 2.25$ and 2.50$,

Which will resulting in x2.75 price for the customers. Not competitive.

“Not competitive” - see? Told You, in spirit of “can’t be done”
No wonder people don’t want to post more, just to be dismissed like that.

How about $2.25/TB x 2.75 (red-solomon) = $6.19/TB storage,
well backblaze got it for 6 i get it.
But instead of maybe exercise the idea, and think it out better, it’s just dismissed with ease!

Maybe $2 x 2.75 = $5,5/TB will do? STORJ could earn $0,5 on top of that, or who said STORJ should earn off of TB space, if it’s marginal, even now, only 23 552TB stored,
that would be +$11,776.00 a month.
Still better than around -$3061 currently (around -$0.13 on very TB lose).

i don’t know, maybe the Red-Solomon algorithm could be trimmed to 2.50 or 2.25?
Then what,
$2/TB storage x 2.5 Red-solomon = $5
$2/TB storage x 2.25 Red-solomon = $4,5
$2/TB storage x 2.00 Red-solomon = $4

leaves a healthy margin for STORJ inc. profit, to match competition at $6.TB storage.
And at the same time means a WORLD to SNOs.
Simply that for now, and the whole topic is solved!

Can You see this?!
No unnecessary emotions, no unnecessary stress and conflicts!

Or 2nd amendment to the announcement, showing no signs of any understanding,
proudly showing how they spent ~100k$ on a Nodes service, last month, and simultaneously
10 times as much for some shady unknown “others” expenses.
(Q3 shows 14 mil tokens for that, and only 1,4 mil for SNOs)
yet they are THREATENING disqualification the possible strike attendants.
Great communication skills indeed!
They don’t get anything seems to.
A group of people threatened a 8PB strike, that’s ~34% of the current network!
And they reply like nothing happens?

You have many wise points, but i’ am not surprised things come that far
i only hope that it will not enrage them,
or otherwise the network may “enjoy” that strike …

[Alexey]

Please, express this opinion (preferably with numbers), why is it not working for you:

Announcement: Changes to node payout rates as of December 1st 2023 (Open for comment)

Hello Storage Node Operators! Important: This includes an announcement of changes to payout rates for storage nodes on all satellites, effective December 1st, and that Storj does not anticipate further payout rate adjustments for the foreseeable future. Thank you so much for your continued engagement on the forums and elsewhere. Your perspective and insights have been invaluable, as we have gone through this time of change. Since the changes made July 1st, (announced on June 27th) we have mon…

[Alexey]

Do not buy a hardware as a first attempt, that’s the point…
This is not mining! The usage depends on customers, not machines, so there is no predictable ROI. Use what you have now and what’s online anyway, with Storj, or without.

[Alexey]

Hello @exkavator
Welcome to the forum!

@exkavator

Responsible operators do everything possible to make their node reliable, using backup power and backup internet.

I would disagree. I did setup my nodes back in 2019 and have not touched them much (except specifying zkSync as my preferred wallet feature).
I even do not have ANY monitoring (even uptimerobot!). I can, but why?!
This is just running! (I wish it would be like this in my daily work… blah…)

[Alexey]

It’s not true. You can (and must in my opinion), provide them here:

Announcement: Changes to node payout rates as of December 1st 2023 (Open for comment)

Hello Storage Node Operators! Important: This includes an announcement of changes to payout rates for storage nodes on all satellites, effective December 1st, and that Storj does not anticipate further payout rate adjustments for the foreseeable future. Thank you so much for your continued engagement on the forums and elsewhere. Your perspective and insights have been invaluable, as we have gone through this time of change. Since the changes made July 1st, (announced on June 27th) we have mon…

[Alexey]

It has been removed, see

Announcement: Storj to shut down europe-north-1 and us2

Hello Storage Node Operators! Important: This includes an announcement that we will be shutting down two satellites: europe-north-1, and us2. See below for details. First of all thank you all so much for your engagement on the forum. The discussions up to now about SNO payouts and infrastructure costs have been productive and have given us insight into your perspective, which has strongly influenced the path we are following. To continue down this path we have decided to sunset two of our non…

[Alexey]

Hello @LeeD ,
Welcome to the forum!

I would suggest to express your opinion (and if it’s possible - with numbers!) to this thread

Announcement: Storj to shut down europe-north-1 and us2

Hello Storage Node Operators! Important: This includes an announcement that we will be shutting down two satellites: europe-north-1, and us2. See below for details. First of all thank you all so much for your engagement on the forum. The discussions up to now about SNO payouts and infrastructure costs have been productive and have given us insight into your perspective, which has strongly influenced the path we are following. To continue down this path we have decided to sunset two of our non…

[Alexey]

We expressed this in all similar thread, if to be honest (doesn’t mean that I like it):

@john

The goal of the Storj project is to create a free market where nodes and satellites engage and find an equilibrium price for the services that the SNOs provide to the network. The current state of disequilibrium not only has the consequence that satellite operators (Storj Labs today but others in the future) are overpaying for capacity, but it also means that the network is over supplied vs the demand that we currently have.

@john

Fundamentally, as we have said a number of times, SNO payments right now are being subsidized by us to grow the network, and we are currently in a position where the network is larger than it needs to be for the demand we have, and it is continuing to grow faster than we need. We have been transparent that the time would come when we would need to decrease SNO payment rates, and we feel that that time is now. We realize that dropping payment rates will slow the growth of and maybe even shrink the network, and that is precisely what we have decided we need to do.

@Bryanm

• Overall the health of the network has clearly improved since the last change to the incentive structure.
• The net number of nodes has decreased only slightly over the time period.
• We measured significant decreases in the amount of repair traffic on the network, showing that the stability is improving.
• There was no significant increase in nodes calling for Graceful Exit.
• The number of nodes that are going offline has actually decreased.

So the truth is - even with reduced prices, the supply is more than a demand… I do not like it, but it’s - truth.

[alfatarsos]

At 2.75 multiplier with Reed-Solomon I do agree it can’t be done. However, my proposal on that topic is a bundle of things including the change of Reed-Solomon to 2.0 multiplier, I think that the multiplier is too high. And make no mistake, I believe changing Reed-Solomon and adjusting uptime will be absolutely essential for the sustainability of pricing and network, and both should be changed together, in my opinion it doesn’t even make sense to adjust pricing without adjusting that multiplier as well.

At 2.25 * 2.00 = 4.5$, Storj could for example increase storage pricing to 4.99$ (even considering inflation everywhere!) and benefit of a 9,8% standard positive margin on storage, then adjusting egress pricing substantially lower as they saw fit for customers as they already are doing today, even reducing it in exchange of the extra starting price in terms of storage. Adjusting Reed-Solomon is not only positive for SNOs, it’s positive for the whole Storj project and its sustainability.

And I’ve already stated on that topic some additionals to further decrease the practical price paid at the end of the month which should offset the difference between a 2.25$ and a 2.00$ pricing for Storj, including uptimes, bandwidth limitation and similar questions.

That has to count something towards the final price. This is nothing impossible, it’s simply a formula and a question of adjusting systems accordingly. I believe that for the customer it’s virtually the same to have 2.7 or 2.0 in terms of Reed-Solomon, and I also believe I’m not being unreasonable in the way I’m proposing it. Only Storj has the statistics in terms of uptime and bandwidth for the network though, so only Storj can actually know whether this is effective. I’m assuming a middle-of-the-road 10% difference between implementing or not those measures.

Finally, I don’t believe Alexey was being abrasive to me by dismissing the idea like that, but on that analysis I have the benefit of knowing some Eastern Europe reality. I think was simply stating it like it is (which with 2.7 factor yes, it is just like that), direct, front and center.

[Alexey]

You are wrong.
My (anecdotal) example:
I bought several disks, because I stored my videos on HDD, I have them a lot. Then… well. I lost an interest… Now I have 4 unused disks. Sell them for $1-$10? My frog saying me that IT IS WRONG. What can I do else?
Whoa - there is Storj, who pay me for nothing! Every month!
Why should I resist?!

[Alexey]

@arrogantrabbit

Modern disks are meant to be used in arrays: the reliability was traded for low cost, so you pretty much have to use redundant arrays

I would disagree. I do not have any array in my home (still) - just do not see, why should I?
All my important data is (now) stored on Storj, the other things - I do not care. Seriously. I still has some videos from the past, which are not backed up… But well… If I did not touch them for YEARS, why do I need them?

[Alexey]

There is also (very dangerous) way - make it offline for a while.

[Alexey]

You are tooooooooo strongly (suspiciously) persistent in clarifying this position. It seems that this is the only thing that interests you.

[Alexey]

@Ruskiem

It doesn’t matter on the one hand telling them not to buy disks, to only use what they have, because, at the same time a company is putting out a reward: will pay for every TB of data written and kept, and every TB of data sent, so these are contradictory messages, with the 2nd one being much stronger. And You cannot simply pay less, to only attract those, who actually have unused space on theirs arrays, because they don’t care to bother in 1st place then, if small reward, and if some do want to make efforts and install a node, and keep it, and service it, that’s not sustainable globally.

This is the whole point, why we suggests TO DO NOT INVEST into anything ONLY for Storj. Because the usage is not predictive, the current and past situations doesn’t guarantee the future income.
If you are sure - go for it, but please, do not blame us for your decisions!

[Alexey]

This is the whole point. If you can’t participate from economical point of view (if this is the only drive), then - do not do it.
Serious. I wasn’t born a Community Leader, I come here as a SNO! And I still!
Just a technology attract my attention. There is also an monetary initiative (less, than I thought…), however - everyone is decide for themselves.

I, personally, have a home server with unused space, and it will be running anyway, because I need it for different other things, include VMs… So, why do not share the unused resources for $$$?

[Alexey]

“Centralized” SOC2 for customers, who WANT and NEED it.
For others - the public network is good enough.

[Alexey]

@BrightSilence

Differentiate customer pricing between native integrations and those who use edge services by the end of 2024.

You cannot believe, how I support this! I’m very sad, that the first integration always s3, without checking a benefits from p2p native…
…Sorry…

@BrightSilence

Promise to let node operators who initiated graceful exit stop that process should a reasonable agreement be reached before the end of January 2024.

I hope this one should solve this:

@Bryanm

If you have started a Graceful Exit and then later decide you want to remain on the network, during the next few months you can file a support ticket to have this Graceful Exit canceled.

[Alexey]

@Ruskiem

But instead of maybe exercise the idea, and think it out better, it’s just dismissed with ease!

Sorry, just a simple math. At the moment I do not see, how it could be a sustainable. And, by the way, It’s my opinion.

[BrightSilence]

What about $5 for native egress, +$3 for using edge services?
That way customers can choose to invest time to save or swallow just $1 more per TB. The point would not be so much to increase prices for customers, but rather to introduce a significant incentive to implement the native solution which comes with lots of other benefits as well.

[littleskunk]

@IsThisOn

I ask myself the question, who takes the 1$ saving in storage over the 5$ extra cost of egress? I only can come up with backup users.

There are also a lot of customers that need a lot of download traffic. Storj pricing is fixed no matter how much download traffic the customer consumes. Also, the performance is great globally and not just in a certain region. The alternatives like Backblaze have some limits in place and will charge extra if the customer exceeds these limits. And by default, it is a single region only and will get much more expensive for customers that need a more global approach.