That graph really needs a log scale…
5 Likes
It’s funny though how this confirms my point about resources you can find online about this topic:
The articles you linked all are 6 to 10 years old.
There are 2 key points here:
- Many people (including the source of the graph you show) assume that using the internet becomes cheaper and cheaper because ISPs have been lowering their prices since the birth of the internet. These prices have been going down because the amount of people connected to the internet has grown exponentially. Another explanation is that the global network is getting more stable and mature thus reducing the maintenance costs. But remember that what ISPs charge is not at all representative of bandwidth cost for the reasons detailed in my first post.
- The ipv4 runout (which is only getting worse over time) mainly affects datacenters and tier 1 providers as consumers don’t need public/static ips and it’s easier for ISPs to assign ipv6 addresses to consumers. A market with limited available spots (namely ipv4 ranges) creates competition. In order to win this competition you have to put more money than others on the table. As a result, prices are going up (NOT ISPs prices but bandwidth cost).
1 Like
I mean, the graph doesn’t even show bandwidth, it shows speed. And while consumer bandwidth usage has gone up, it hasn’t gone up as much as the speed has. So technically people just use less of their available bandwidth. I also wonder what plans it’s based on. It didn’t cost me a whole lot to double my connection from 500mbit to 1gbit and that’s probably because I didn’t start using any more bandwidth at all as a result of that switch. So if they base it on the fastest connections, it’s really not that representative of bandwidth.
It’s also ‘funny’ because you don’t know that I sell business internet connections and bandwidth in the UK. So I am very aware of bandwidth pricing for the UK market. Whilst not everywhere in the world is the same I also have access to European and US pricing to know the long term trend is similar.
You mentioned the 2000’s so I found multiple articles which reference your timeframe. If you want something newer, well that’s available too:
I do agree with your comments about consumer ISP costs not being reflective of actual costs due to the market being about high volume (of customers) vs. low margin.
Again, I’m not seeing this at all. Yes, ipv4 address costs are increasing (i.e. they used to be ‘free’ but now can be sold and traded) but it’s not related to bandwidth in any way. You don’t buy 1TB of bandwidth with 1 x IPv4. They are totally independent, not interdependent.
5 Likes
bandwidth will keep getting cheaper so long as network technology keeps advancing at a rapid pace…
one day that might not be the case… but has been advancing for a long time…
ofc seen from a home LAN perspective the 1Gbit connection has remained for a decade or more and hasn’t really gone further… so from that aspect networking doesn’t seem to have advanced that much.
but it really has in the enterprise and ISP levels and is continuing to.
saying bandwidth prices has gone up is a misconception, tho the last few years corona and such, has caused a bit of a price spike in ISP costs and not helped by the inflation we are seeing now…
but its difficult to make an argument that it has really gotten more expensive…
and if so its a temporary little bump in the road… which seems to be eternally down hill 
ISP’s had a lot of extra costs during corona, which they had to move on to the customers for the time after, doesn’t really mean bandwidth has gone up in price…
just seem so because we used so much more of it.
I never doubted the fact that you know what you’re talking about. My experience as a datacenter operator and bandwidth purchaser in Europe and NA is different from yours. As you have access to pricing data then you may agree with my original point made in my first post stating that the proposed egress pricing rate is not adequate considering current bandwidth cost in most parts of the world. I’m not even talking about infrastructure maintenance costs here, just bandwidth.
I didn’t say that they were correlated. Of course ipv4 now represent an entire separate market. My point there was to explain once more how individual and “professional” SNOs don’t have the same expenses as a whole not only talking about bandwidth. I agree that this particular sentence may have been misinterpreted and not clear enough.
1 Like
I think it was one of the point of Storj that residential internet users have no bandwidth cost against datacenters. So it is static cost for operators not related with amount of bandwidth.
I don’t think the payout model is meant for data center operators.
Storj may have opportunities for data centers at some point, but that would be a different product than the current one. The reasoning is that there are going to be some customers that need data locked into a certain geo-location, or they need their data in a secure facility due to industry requirements that may be outdated, but often business moves slow when it comes to updating standards. In these situations, customers may want to use Storj, but need certain qualities that the home user cannot provide.
Anyway, that is speculation on my part, but I understand the need for both the low price home user model, and a modest price for data center and geo-location locked configurations.
Only if that advance in technology outgrows bandwidth demand. If demand grows faster than advancements in networking infra, the prices will definitely go up.
Only as long as Storj doesn’t become too popular. If Storj turns otherwise profitable ISP customers into loss leaders and that happens at scale after the network becomes more popular, somethings gotta give. And I would hate to see ISPs start to throttle data, bump customers to commercial connections or block Storj traffic. The only other option is raising prices for everyone. Even if it isn’t currently a cost to residential SNOs, it’s reasonable to point out this discrepancy as it may eventually impact them as well if the ISPs get involved with this discussion.
3 Likes
That basically is my whole point. Of course some could argue that my opinion is biased and it probably is but I think that defining rates based on ISPs that actually balance their costs off of millions of customers whose use of the internet is radically different from one another is a bad idea especially when considering that we (we=datacenter operators) have a clear idea of what 1TB of bandwidth is worth in every single major region of the world.
This, if deployed in the future, would be great but I think that prices should still be based on real-world bandwidth cost and not ISP rates for the “standard” Storj product.
Just my 2 cents.
I’m now facing a question whether I should migrate some of my nodes to new hardware or just dismantle and abandon them. Not sure if it’s because of SMR drives, less than perfect connectivity, or geographical location, but nodes in question earn between $1.8 and $2.7 per TB per month. For existing setup it’s okay, but investing in storage knowing that there is going to be the drop in earnings does not seem justified.
2 Likes
This is simply wrong! Storj currently pays >100% of the revenue to SNOs. Every sale Storj does currently is a net loss. The proposal for updated SNO payouts is one measure the company plans to implement to become net profitable on sales and expand to larger customers.
10 Likes
I think there is just misunderstanding, 5% it is from all expenses of storj, not 5% of income
2 Likes
buying shares and such also isn’t really an expense… more like a redistribution of assets.
but aside from those few mistakes @rezt makes some great observations and points.
1 Like
Welcome to the forum @rezt !
First off I would like to thank you for giving your feedback. As a SNO I love hearing what customers think and want from Storj.
Before this post what stopped you from throwing all that storage towards the network. Could you also share how much storage do you currently use from Storj network?
5 Likes
Welcome in Germany 
4 Likes
If egress is not paid, we could put a bandwidth limit of 10Kb/s on the uplink of the nodes and free up bandwidth for porn, gaming and whatnot… 
2 Likes
This post should have started like this:
“We are living in difficult times. We decided to change the payout structure of our staff, including myself. We’re cutting our pay by 50 to 90%. Now, let’s talk about the SNO’s payout structure changes…”.
I’ve accepted that my time is paid zero. It’s hobby time. But my extra storj electricity costs can not be paid by me…
I want Storj to remain viable long term, but it’s not viable anyway if it depends on me subsidising it…
3 Likes
@rezt
Thanks for sharing your taughts about Storj. They need to hear feedback from potential customers also. As a curiosity, if any of your concerns whould be resolved, would you be ok if prices for customers would be doubled, in order to support paying SNOs more?
1 Like
Thanks for your words as a costumer.
I also think that Storj has failed in marketing its advantages and instead focus on price competition, while failing to notice that crushing the SNO’s will only lead to one possible result, which they won’t like…
However, let’s be fair here. The “<5%” is just not right. The “-0.5” on the storj table is the difference between what they got from costumers and what they paid to SNO’s. It’s a well known fact that storj pays more for storage/egress than it receives for that storage/egress. In that sense, storj should work to have less clients, not more. Any new client is a new liability.
Either something different is done (and you may have a few good ideas on that) or the project is simply not sustainable. But you are right when you say crushing the SNO’s will not solve the problem, I’m not even sure if it will delay the unavoidable implosion (as things stand) or rush it…
1 Like