I don’t wanna sound to pessimistic, but I more and more think that the party is over. You can outrun basic economics but not for long.
Prices for customers need to go down, not up
As a customer, I compare STORJ with Backblaze. Backblaze is a company I trust to still exist in two years, so I don’t have to change my S3 settings. I can not say the same for STORJ. STORJ would have to be a lot cheaper before most companies or users would even think about making the switch. STORJ marketing loves to compare prices to AWS. Make prices so low, that your marketing department compares prices to Backblaze. Maybe then utilisation will grow.
Current STORJ Node operators are mostly the wrong kind of operators
Lets remember for a second, what the unique selling point of STORJ used to be. What was the main competitive advantage of STORJ over other companies like Backblaze?
It was that we use unused storage and bandwith. Emphasis on unused. That is why STORJ is cheaper than Backblaze. We don’t buy hardware, we don’t run extra servers, we just use unused resources. Because if we don’t only use unused resources, we have no advantage over Backblaze. Neither technological nor economical. So when operators like @BrightSilence buy a 400€ 20TB HDD just for STORJ, this does not make any sense. I would label him as a semi or full pro node operator. While I would describe myself as a STORJ Maxi. STORJ Maxis believe only in unused resources, while the pros spend money. Economics will wash out the pros.
We need lower bandwith costs
Even STORJ Maxis have a hard time justify running their nodes, when storage costs would go down. Electricity is not cheap, so even a 8TB WD RED drive using 7W for 20cents/kWh is one Euro a month. And that does not factor in the vetting process. At the same time, STORJ can not pay more for storage and still make a profit. If we can’t compete on storage, we need to cut down on bandwidth. Make it 2,5$ for customers, that is a quarter of Backblaze, something your marketing can work with. Pay the nodes 2$ and keep 0.5$ for yourself.
Is there enough storage in the system when the subsidies are gone?
This is an interesting one. I think IF STORJ is a viable business case, it is now old enough to get rid of subsides. You had enough time, either it will swim or it will go down. But then the question is, do we have enough STORJ Maxis to offer enough storage? How many pros will jump the ship?
Ditch the crypto bs
This one is gonna be controversial, but you should fade out the Token and the Web3 marketing. It attracts a huge amount of idiots without any benefit. I saw people claim on reddit, that STORJ is the future, because it stores data on the blockchain… I mean the stupidity of that claim is just mind blowing. Also my bet is, that these are not customers that will spend money anyway. And even the non stupid Web3 evangelist don’t care about STORJ, because it is neither decentralised nor needed in the new Web3 world. You simply scare real customers away with these buzzwords. Just pay the nodes with FIAT, it is not even that more expensive.
Where to go from here?
I personally think there are only two ways. Maybe STORJ is robust enough to handle the fade out of subsidies. That would be great, and you would not need to change anything in the near future. The other way would be completely new way of doing things. I ask myself the question, what would be needed so that a small business or average Joe home users would rent out his space and bandwidth?
- Easy to install
- No identity, just a login
- No port forwarding
- Payout in FIAT
- Uptime of 6h during workdays and no uptime on the weekends
For example: Lisa works in marketing from home. She is using an iMac and an external Disk for her photography hobby. During the 8h she is working, STROJ is running in the background and earning her some money. Once a year, she gets a payout. Small business ACME inc. has 50 employees. They all have CAD workstations with secondary HDDs. CEO Frank has installed STORJ on all systems with one single login. STORJ runs in the background during workdays. Fabian likes self hosting his photos and music collection. He has a Synology NAS with unused storage at home. His NAS runs 24/7. On the weekends he earns some extra money, because he wins all races against Lisa and Frank.
Of course that reduced uptime will have a big impact. You would need to distribute files a lot wider to guarantee uptime.