Reducing the number of nodes in the US by almost 20% since May

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ā€œThe cost of everythingā€ (that matters to Storj, i.e. hard drives and electricity) is way cheaper than in other countries (Europe). So I donā€™t think that is the reason. I can still operate my 5TB node profitably in Germany with an electricity cost of 0.35ā‚¬ per kWh.

wow this is extremally high cost, I have around 2x lower

Here are rates where I live. https://www.pge.com/pge_global/common/pdfs/rate-plans/how-rates-work/Residential-Rates-Plan-Pricing.pdf

Bit electricity is the smallest cost involved.

If running nodes is considered to be a business everything shall be accounted for, including hardware depreciation and maintenance requirements.

The latter one is a huge one. It covers opportunity cost of you spending time on this forum, troubleshooting issues, setting up and maintaining solutions around it, writing scripts and documents, dealing with tokens transfers, etc etc.

Minimum wage in California is $15.50/hour.

So, if you spend 1 hour of your time a month doing anything related to storj you have eliminated any profits from an average node.

Hence, the only profitable way is to run a lot of nodes, since some of the costs are fixed and donā€™t scale with the number of nodes. In fact, most costs donā€™t.

And this is not feasible for most enthusiast node operators, who just want to contribute extra space on their home server.

Even before price reduction I considered my involvement with storj part entertainment/part donation to a worthy project. From this perspective what storagenode pays is irrelevant.

But either way, it canā€™t be a business unless you manage a lot (20+? 100+?) nodes, that is only feasible for select few.

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This is because German closed all Nuclear power stations, now I would suggest that those ā€œGreensā€ that was after that, should spin turbines by they own to provide normal electricity.
Sorry is it offending someone, but it just hard truth.

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This is misinformation spread by far right political parties, the electricity prices are high because of the conflict with Russia in combination with how the German electricity market works. If you are curious about the mechanics, Google ā€œMerit Orderā€.

Furthermore, my electricity price of 0.35ā‚¬ per kWh is about the same as it was before the war and before the shutdown of the last nuclear power plants.

Last but not least, it was the conservative christian democratic party (CDU) that decided to shut down all nuclear power plants after the Fukushima reactor catastrophe. It would not have been possible to just keep the last remaining reactors running, as Germany doesnā€™t have nuclear fuel and the power plants were old and had to be repaired.

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thanks for clarifying, than I was misinformed.

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How will Germany produce electricity? Nuclear? No. Coal? No, worst kind of coal is found. Gas? No evil nordstream.

But you do have millions of hectares of treesā€¦
Burn them.

The forest in Germany covers 11.4 million hectares, 32 percent of the total area of the country (as of 2012). In the German forests grow about 90 billion young and old trees with a total wood stock of 3.7 billion cubic meters

A tree takes 20-60 years to grow back, Germany is very densely populated and doesnā€™t have enough forest to generate even a small percentage of its energy by burning trees. The future of Germanyā€™s energy generation is wind and solar, and sharing with its European neighbors.

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whats up bro ?

I know how much HDD and electricity cost in the US.
But they wonā€™t just work on their own.
Must be an operator.
And the operator needs to live somewhere and eat something.
And when you go to breakfast and eat two pancakes ($20) and a cup of coffee for ($5-6), I donā€™t see an option that would make you want to become an operator for $1.5/tb

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Storj is not meant to be a job. Itā€™s meant to supplement the costs of operating your server which is running anyway and has free space left on the hard drive.

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20$/2 pancakes? 5$ a cup of coffee? WOW! From where do you get these prices?

Starbucks is pretty expensive id say, can easily spend my entire month of storj on starbucks for 1 days worth of coffee and breakfestā€¦ 1 cup of white choc mocha is 9 dollars and a sasage sammich is another 10 or soā€¦Guess ill have to stick to the dollar menu at McDonalds Lol

Could you be profitable on a new node for the first 10 months whilst withheld % is in process?

Importing your timber would make more sense then. There are hardwoods that mature well within a 10 year span. Softwoods can be even faster.

You have very high costs of livingā€¦ I saw such high prices in european cities, in tourist areas, but locals know how to avoid them.

Windmill power generation is a sinkhall for govrnmentā€™s money. There are very few locations on the planet with permanent windy conditions that make sense for windmills. But even so, the maintenance costs are sometimes too big. I know of places where they get a lot of subsidies from government, because they donā€™t produce the expected amount of energie, they are stalling half of the time, and the rest they are used to mine bitcoin ;).
Solar power makes sense if the investment is made right.

Actually, if you would account for wastes to create solar panels or windmills, and their efficiency, you may consider the nuclear stations more ā€œgreenā€, especially ones which can reuse used nuclear fuel with less efficiency, but still better than a best of green solutions now.

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After the pandemic costs soared. Itā€™s the same thing in California, Oregon, Washington, even Colorado. At least in places where you would want to live. Of course, somewhere in the small rural towns in West Virginia it may still be cheap.

Thatā€™s the new reality. Food prices doubled in last few years.

Can confirm!

Hi all!

Here we come to the point from which the topic was started.
The cost of living in the United States is rising at a high rate, and the wages of operators are declining at an even faster rate.
Am I imagining things or did something go wrong?

the situation with SNO in the US looks like some kind of Dutch disease