What is going on makes only sense if storj had almost no paying customers until last year. This might also explain why they are so hesitant to show us the numbers.
However, one day the cleanup must be over and we can see the real growth. I guess we are close to that point.
I know I had another large chunk of ~5% overall data being removed yesterday.
Like it has been said so many times before; my equipment is running either way, so growth of no growth, it’s still free money
We have to be VERY close to that point as we have 6% less data now (free+paid) then on april 6th. This is only possible if they deleted almost all free data and the paid data growth nearly stopped since that.
I believe that such graph likely looked as this one in the last and previous years, you may check it on https://StorjStats.info.
But you also correct, that the grow speed has been increased in 2024:
My idea will stand: Just delete all outstanding free tier data. Yes Node operators will hate it, but then they can’t complain about sinking node storage anymore. And they’ll see rising nodes again
I’m fine waiting for slow deletion. That means Storj is compensating SNOs for some space they shouldn’t (as no customer is funding it). If they want to pay me more money than my node should be earning… just to smooth things out… I’m going to let them.
They should get rid of that free tire data already. I want a clear picture of the payed data, to better plan for future upgrades. But if there’s a lot of free data that will be deleted at some point, it creates a very ambiguous image and we can plan anything.
I acknowledge and fully support your statement.
Yes, it doesn’t bother me too. What bothers me are all the people complaining since months about no rising storage. It’s always the same thing going in circles. All that would poof with just a single huge delete 
Because those “all the people” blame storjs politics for that: too high price, and have counter propositions and vital points how to fix that, but storjs just believes in its current way, justifiably or not justifiably, we do not know. We will find out.
Afaik, StorJ is one of the cheapest for Storage, so what do you exactly mean with price too high? The only high price there is, is egress. And in comparison with others is ok, I think (I am open to get other opinions there)
The only thing is, that storj focuses on Companies only and small customers are dropped. Something like a Dropbox competition would maybe be good there.
The consumer storage market is the worst market. Too high of a support burden, for too little paid-space, and extremely price-sensitive. You want to sell to large companies with smart employees that don’t need a lot of hand-holding… and who upload lots of data… and who view price through a business lens: and have decided paying $4/TB/m+egress is more cost-effective than running offsite object storage themselves.
Then chase medium companies using S3. Then small companies. But leave the general public last: they’re poor and not tech-savvy - Dropbox can have them 
I would add to a @Roxor’s point that these consumer apps may already use Storj under the hood, but you never know.
Kewl, I had data being deleted at up to 1 Gbps tonight…Would seem pretty efficient.
2 cents,
Julio
Hiya @brandon - we’re closing in on a month since the conception of this post.
Is there an update to the rest of the unpaid data situation?
Kind regards
Well, my node is up +80gb since 2 weeks.
hey @Ottetal,
Yes, we have mostly caught up to where we need to be. Cleaning up this data will be a part of our normal monthly processes so going forward we do not expect to have large data cleanup events like this one. Data stored on the network has continued to increase and is is higher even with all the data we have cleaned up!
We are continuing to focus on customer demand to increase storage and egress on the network! Colby (CEO) and John (CBDO) spoke about this in the town hall we recently published. (its worth the listen )
Hiya @brandon,
Thank you so much for your response. I saw the Town Hall when it went live (please announce it at least the day before next time), and was thrilled to see all the great progress of both StorJ, the network and the customers interactions with it.
And thank you much more for upgrading the town hall microphones as well
