The cloud storage market is projected to grow nearly 20% to reach approximately $235 billion by 2028, yet it is currently dominated by a few major centralized providers. This reliance creates vulnerabilities, evidenced by a significant data loss incident involving an Australian pension fund in 2024, where $125 billion in data was deleted due to a human error. Centralized cloud platforms often operate without transparency, leaving clients vulnerable to data tampering and loss, especially as data retention is tied to ongoing payments. Complexity in pricing models also traps consumers in unfavorable agreements, hindering their ability to switch providers.
The power of centralized cloud providers means that a slip of a developer's finger can result in huge data loss, as was the case for an Australian pension fund in May 2024, whose balances were accidentally deleted by the Google Cloud team. This slip wiped $125 billion-worth of data from Australians' retirement savings that were recovered only because the fund itself has been cautious with its backups.
Centralized cloud storage providers like AWS and Google Cloud, for example, are essentially black boxes that do not provide their clients with any information on how the network is run, no guarantees against tampering, nor of data permanence.
Since these hyperscalers all operate through subscription models, data is only ever stored as long as companies or individuals continue paying, even if the data is of public interest.
The problem is further exacerbated by high switching costs, which lock in data storage consumers who face bills they can't understand. For example, AWS S3 storage bills are notoriously complex due to the different pricing schemes.
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