SNO's please don't buy anything

Node Operators
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As we know from recent discussions both in the forum and during public streaming meetings, the economics for Storj Node Operators is going to change. The amount being paid out will very likely go down. How much, how configured, and what incentives there may be is unknown right now.

But I see constant posts where SNO’s are buying things for their nodes, or referencing Bright Silence’s earnings estimator to decide if it will be worthwhile to buy something. Don’t buy anything. The earnings are going to change. And you may not get a return on your investment for a lot longer than the estimator currently predicts.

Please don’t buy anything for use with Storj Nodes. We admins have been stating this from the start. It is best to use hardware you already have and is already running for some other purpose.

If you are determined to spend money, I really suggest waiting until the proposed and official announcements on what the new earnings model is going to be. Only then will you really know what will make financial sense as a SNO.

I don’t know when they plan to present the new model, but I believe it will be relatively soon. So please, don’t buy anything until then.

Thanks. And if you are wondering if I know what the new numbers are, I do not. I only know what has been publically disclosed over the past few months. But that is enough to know that earnings are likely going to go down, so estimating an ROI for new hardware or service purchases right now is impossible without the new numbers.

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I’ve added a warning to the estimator with a link to this post. Will update that link to the announcement when it happens. But yes, with what has been discussed in previous topics and during the twitter spaces, I second the recommendation to wait for more info before making purchase decisions.

Edit: I should add that I didn’t share the hard line stance on only using hardware you already had previously. But in my opinion purchasing hardware should only ever be done after careful consideration of risks and rewards involved, which isn’t possible if future payouts are unknown.

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How about the 150 GB free tier goes down? Or the price per TB goes UP?

You know, I was really excited for Storj. Especially seeing the progress they have been making. But it’s starting to sound like just another soon to be dead crypto project if this happens.

It already isn’t very profitable to begin with and everyone has been waiting and hoping for it to become MORE profitable, not less. Especially long term sno’s like myself. It’s been a hobby for now with the hopes of it turning into something more. In terms of current payouts, I don’t think most of us are looking for more per TB, just more data altogether. We understand this takes time… But if in a world where inflation is spiraling out of control, Storj is going to continue to practically give away storage at a loss only to pass that loss onto sno’s, why should we stick around?

Unless… the plan is to cut out the little guys and go with “commercial” node operators since at scale Storj WOULD be profitable enough to cut costs especially if done on already existing infrastructure.

Storj advertises itself as being 80% less than existing storage options. Sounds like my wife undervaluing herself because she lacks the confidence even though she’s brilliant. Does Storj lack confidence in their own product? Storj is new tech, superior to the existing storage platforms in many ways. Since when does anything new in the tech scene come in at 80% less than the old tech? I understand that the project is still small, trying to get it’s foot in the door and be competitive but 80%? Seems like theres PLENTY of “wiggle room” there… but instead let’s punish our dedicated node operators that have made this all possible in the first place!

The fact that they’ve always told us from the beginning not to buy hardware specifically for Storj should be a red flag at this point. I always figured it was in regards not wanting people to blame Storj if the project tanked or whatever but I’m starting to think smaller sno’s were never really part of the long term plan.

Let’s face it… Storj claims they want to reach exebyte scale right? This will NEVER happen with average everyday people sharing “unused disk space”. This would require sno’s willing and able, to expand and scale with the network, something we’re told not to do, and now there’s going to be even less incentive? Telling you right now people, they start this and it goes the way of bitcoin mining. Only the people with stupid money will be able to make anything and everyone else get’s the short end of the stick.

Oh, and for those who will respond to remind me about the /24 limitations, I’m fully aware… but you have to remember Storj can change that if it’s financially beneficial to them.

End of rant.

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It would be best to take these concerns to the main thread discussing the potential changes.

https://forum.storj.io/t/lets-talk-about-the-elephant-in-the-room-the-storj-economic-model-node-operator-payout-model/

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You dont gotta worry too much theres gonna be a revolt against this im sure with how many people have nodes can just simple stop running them, And storj depends on storagenodes operators in order to stay afloat… So That said it will be intersting to see how this unfolds.

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I would have to imagine they know this and would plan accordingly if they insist on moving forward with it. They could already have deals with datacenters for all we know. It already looks like a lot of nodes are run out of datacenters as it is if you look at the node locations.

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Reposted it there.
Ahh… 20 character limit…

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Well this and people use IPs from datacenters to forward to get away from the subnet problem.

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True, but there’s no way to tell which is which. And if Storj was to make acceptions to the rule for large scale operators it would be far less nodes. I don’t think datacenters would want to be messing around with running hundreds of nodes. Have you seen Paris though? Holy ****!

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What I know for sure is the growth of storj has happened alot faster then expected and this is a problem for the future and ive been saying this since the start that people would bypass the /24subnet and running more then 1000nodes on a large scale. For me it doesnt effect me much since im not making much on storj to begin with but there are some larger farms that wont be happy about loosing money…

But it could be good for us smaller node operators.

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Considering that they have to pay for all those extra IP’s, if payouts drop and it hurts them to much, yeah… large node operators might just quit! That won’t be or look good for Storj. But I don’t see how faster growth is bad. Just because there’s more free space than needed right now isn’t bad as empty space isn’t paid. It is however required in order to onboard potential large customers. The problem is that Storj is giving to much away for free in the free tier, and not charging enough to begin with. The fact that there’s lots of nodes and people willing to grow the network is good and should be rewarded not penalized. If that’s how Storj treats the people who make this game even possible, it’s going to create waves for sure. And no offense, but I don’t see how making less is good for anybody.

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The reason growth is bad because storj is paying out alot more then they want too. Remember that is Key and they just fired a bunch of people…SO think about it.

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It’s only bad because they decided to charge less for storage than they pay for it. This is simple math. You can’t make any money if your expense is higher than what your bringing in. So yes, in this case the more you grow the more you loose.

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I’m going to lock this one. Please continue the discussion in the thread that covers the economics linked to above.

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The data storage business is very complex, as are gas stations. Without additional services from the provider, it will always be not very profitable or even unprofitable. I have many examples where professional teams have launched data storage services for business clients. They had both customer bases, and low prices for equipment and space in data centers. Almost all of them went bankrupt, only those who were able to offer package solutions taking into account the specifics of their clients’ business remained.

For this reason, I do not treat Story as a long-term project, and I believe that at any moment it can collapse due to lack of profit.

Given the growth of the network, especially in January 2023, it is understandable that the company needs to either reduce costs or attract more customers.

Attracting new customers is difficult, given that STORJ has ignored all the Web 3 trends of the last three years. In fact, this is a backblaze that is incompatible with the government’s requirements for storing data in the territory where they appear and are processed. And this immediately excludes a large layer of commercial customers.

Again, a small number of satellites does not contribute to real decentralization, which does not attract real followers of free software and those who are looking for ways to circumvent censorship.

Of course, the company needs to change something, and I’m just surprised that no work is being done in this direction. At least I haven’t seen anything like this in the last 2 years. I believe that it is necessary to offer users some web3 solutions and completely abandon the STORJ token, because its existence does not make sense, as I wrote about about a year ago.

I would be interested if STORJ offered not only distributed storage, but also some kind of renting CPU power, met the requirements for data storage, worked for stablecoins, and shared revenue through the staking model of its native token.

But unfortunately, I believe that this will not help either, since we have an example of Filecoin and FLUX. A good option would be to develop your own STORJ-based services in addition to offering your network “as a service” for business partners.

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If node operation gets unprofitable, then node operators will stop their nodes and the network will go booooooom…

Make a wise decision here :-o

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Yup. That’s no question I fear so.

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Even if the current SNO’s stay - the rate of node growth could simply drop off a cliff and that itself will make issues for the longer term.

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Guys, the project will live if you fulfill several conditions:

  1. Reduce the cost of cloud hosting satellites, you have specialists and let them host several servers and distribute the load. Take the placement of servers in many countries, install low-power servers (or VPS), and distribute the load between them - then the coverage and response will be good, and most importantly, a decrease in monthly funding.
    Hosting servers or VPS costs a lot less money than you spend!
    And most importantly, this will help you debug the operation of many satellites, you will be able to offer users to launch satellites themselves, but the model for accounting for financing, distributing the load between storage operators will be under your control. Thus, now you are producing many satellites, checking, but knowing that over time you will only be responsible for balancing and distributing / controlling payments to storage operators, and the satellites themselves will pay organizations.
    !!! By the way, it is possible to launch third-party satellites on the terms of PRIORITY (let’s say in the amount of + 15%) filling the storage nodes of the owner of the satellite !!! This will also help decentralization and there will be a transparent model for what the storage operator can and wants to launch a satellite.

  2. Focus on custom phone apps, photo sync, and more. What would people use, you need an interface and convenience. And therefore, the payment model is more understandable to people on a monthly basis, say for photos and the mobile version only for volume. And already versions for PC and files more than 300MB - payment for traffic.

  3. Finally solve the issue of small files, to work with millions of small files you need operator experience and good expensive new hard drives. As an operator, I don’t care what model you use, but I have problems with porting, fragmentation, the need for third-party caching - solve these problems and you can use cheap disks, old servers.

  4. And most importantly, let’s be frank that being a storage operator is not for everyone, you need both knowledge and experience and equipment. Start focusing on large operators!

Well, whatever it was, you guys are great and I wish you good luck.
I stay with you.

P.S. I just ordered 4 new drives yesterday to migrate data from older, less reliable and smaller drives. And today. That’s it… But I’m full of optimism and I think the truth will be born in the discussion, which will help in the future.

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I have participated in almost all storage networks, starting with Symform - the same problems are everywhere: low network speed, centralization and boredom. STORJ looks more mature compared to them due to mining and token, but guys, you are cool specialists, but finally hire yourself a normal marketer.

You can mine at a loss if your token looks promising. And while you use it only to pay operators, then in stock exchange language, your token is “constantly doomed to be on sale.” And it should be in demand by an ordinary user. It is also on the ERC20 network with huge commissions, that is, it cannot be used at all by an ordinary user with expenses of $ 4-5-10 per month. It needs to be transferred to a normal network like TRON or BNB. Look at BNB (Binance), look at Nexo, look at Etherium - these tokens are in demand by the service itself, so they show growth, and you can talk about forward profitability in them.

You have already been written above - start making your application for photos, for sharing documents, so that it is at least somehow on a level with Google Disk and Dropbox. And token holders can be given preferences: higher speed, higher level of information protection, geographical distribution of data, etc. Then there will be at least some interest in buying STORJ token for those who want to store data in a distributed network.

Such networks as Filecoin, Sia and others are all uninteresting neither for the user nor for the miner, because an ordinary person does not care at all in which cloud his data is stored - in the distributed cabinets and storerooms of operators or in the data center.

Now both Binance and Telegram are planning to launch their data storage networks, and no matter how much time you have to change something, there is not much left. You are already in a position when you came to the miners to tell them about your financial problems in a friendly way. That’s good, thank you for being honest. But maybe you will still listen to the community and start investing in marketing? SIA is already on her last legs - it’s about to disappear. You are supported only by subsidies to node operators. Think hard, think hard.

PS and thanks again for your honesty - I was just going to order hard drives just for STORJ, but now I’ll wait and see how it will be.