@BrightSilence I appreciate the spreadsheet and the thought that went into your post. I posted in another thread about this month’s payouts but wanted to chime in on the estimator.
We originally started with a spreadsheet and we created the online version to allow prospective storage node operators a way to determine if it was worth the effort to operate a storage node. There are some assumptions behind the calculator about how much usage there might be on the network and what percentage of the user’s bandwidth and storage might be used in a particular month. Overall, the purpose of the calculator was to give a prospective SNO some idea of the range of possible outcomes given their equipment and available bandwidth.
There are a number of variables that determine how much a SNO can earn, but probably the most impactful is upload speed from the node, which translates into download traffic on the Storj network. While it’s possible to create some interesting results depending on how you slide the dials, in general, we created this calculator when we didn’t have any data on how the network will behave when in production. Well, here we are - in production.
I don’t know if we’ll update the SNO estimator or deprecate it in favor of content that clearly explains how SNO economics work. I’d be interested in feedback on whether it’s still useful. (You can check out the source spreadsheet if you’re interested.) The estimator is built on a set of assumptions that can only be evaluated as demand for storage on the network grows. As with any new technology, we’re seeing good traction with early adopters, but rapidly growing the network will take time and a lot of work.
Most SNOs are joining the network for the long term. We need early adopters who host a node and run it reliably for a long time. This gives us the capacity and time to grow the customer base and continue to develop new capabilities.
It’s impossible for us to know at this point the amount of storage and bandwidth customers will use in 1, 3 or 5 years from now, but having a reliable group of storage nodes will significantly increase the probability of success. We will be subsidizing the network in advance of customer growth so that SNOs aren’t bearing the entire cost of providing supply in anticipation of demand.
We’re seeing many types of backup use cases today from production partners and customers - DB backups, NAS backups, data center hybrid cloud backups - as well as a range of other use cases that tend to be lower bandwidth use cases. As the network grows, we’ll expect to see higher value use cases. In addition, we have a wide range of roadmap items under consideration that will be prioritized as we see demand for those use cases.