Asia's Richest Man Says He Will Give Everyone 100 GB of Free Cloud Storage (techcrunch.com) 43
Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man and the chairman of Reliance Industries, said this week that his telecom firm will offer users 100 GB of free cloud storage. Oil-to-retail giant Reliance, which is India's most valuable firm by market cap, has upended the telecom market in India by offering free voice calls and dirt-cheap internet access.
Jio, Reliance's telecom subsidiary, serves 490 million subscribers, more than any rival in India. Jio offers access to at least 2GB of data per day for 14 days to subscribers for a total of $2.3. TechCrunch adds: Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI Cloud service, set to launch around Diwali in October, Ambani said.
Jio, Reliance's telecom subsidiary, serves 490 million subscribers, more than any rival in India. Jio offers access to at least 2GB of data per day for 14 days to subscribers for a total of $2.3. TechCrunch adds: Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI Cloud service, set to launch around Diwali in October, Ambani said.
unless my math is wrong... (Score:2)
Isn't like like 52+ Exabytes (pre-compression/dedup?) I mean, that's a lot and I wouldn't want to manage it, but not impossible.
Re:unless my math is wrong... (Score:4, Interesting)
Only if everybody fills their quota.
At that scale it's probably in the $20 range per user (managed cost).
Probably less than a year's profits per subscriver and a good way to maintain brand loyalty.
The most poor and least secure Indians probably stand the most to gain from having reliable, stable storage.
Seems like a smart business move with social benefit. Good for him.
Re:unless my math is wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
$20? PPFFTT, thats pennies compared to siphoning personal data on peoples lives to sell to the government, companies, their enemies, gangs, criminals, and Im sure... "very good people"
Re: (Score:2)
Not impossible if they don't Kimdotkom him away.
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Companies like Google have already been giving 15 GB to everyone for free for many years now. I am sure others give more. 100 GB is not that much more, and given that this service launches in 2024, is not that impressive given that Moore's law applies to storage as well. Hopefully it will push the competition to give better offerings as well. Just like when Google launched Gmail with 1GB storage. Following Google's announce in 2004, Microsoft increased Hotmail's free storage from a pathetic 2MB to 250 MB.
Al
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This reminds me of a startup I once worked for in Houston. They bragged that they could handle 6 million users on a single server. What they didn't tell people, was that they had a contract with the city of Houston, technically licensing all residents to use the software. The reality was that only a few dozen people used the software, but they still bragged about 6 million "licensed" users. And we employees knew that if more a few people tried to use that server at any given time, it would fall over. Needle
FTFY (Score:2, Funny)
Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI Cloud service
...fixing...
Reliance invites Jio users to donate up to 100 GB of free data to train its Jio AI Cloud service
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I also plan to offer everyone up to 100 GB of free cloud storage. Zero comes under "up to 100 GB" too, right?
Wow, that's actually a magnificent gift. (Score:3)
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Re:Wow, that's actually a magnificent gift. (Score:4, Funny)
Can I see the TOS before I accept?
Yes you can read it, but if you have an incident at Disneyland it'll have to go through binding arbitration.
It's not free (Score:5, Informative)
It's not free if you pay for it.
It's only for subscribers.
Amazon doesn't offer free 2-day shipping to anyone except those on a trial period either.
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It sounds like it will only be for AI bullshit as well, you won't be able to upload arbitrary stuff to it.
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I thought it was for AI training, but then maybe it's to lock in 1/2 billion telecom subscribers.
It's a trap (Score:2)
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if you hear freebird, get the fuck outta there
Beware (Score:2)
Meh (Score:2)
I get 10 Terabytes online for $79 a year, so this doesn't really excite me.
Re: Meh (Score:3)
You're not one of his telecom's paying customers, and you aren't likely to be, so they were never trying to 'excite' you with this offer...
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You're not one of his telecom's paying customers, and you aren't likely to be, so they were never trying to 'excite' you with this offer...
And it worked.
Give Us Your Data (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, give us your data. We won't do anything bad with it. Don't question it, just give it to us. Totally free, just outta the goodness of our hearts.
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Storage... hey that rings a bell.... (Score:2)
Re: Storage... hey that rings a bell.... (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, 10 TB (100x 10 GB) drives are a thing, but:
They cost about $250, this is a free service.
They require a processor, NIC, and internet connectivity to compare with this free service.
This is only available to his paying customers in India for his telecom service, that is a small subset of "everyone" and likely isn't an option for you.
But yeah, hard drives are a thing, so what?
This is your argument: "I can buy a 5,000 sq ft pre-fabricated building for a fraction of the price of a 5,000 sq ft McMansion, this
'Free' Business Model 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
The business model seems clear: Give storage away for free, scan everyone's data, and sell the results for money. That should more than pay for the storage. He's not giving anything away here. If he wanted to do that, he'd send everyone $100.
Re: 'Free' Business Model 101 (Score:2)
It's even simpler - offer someone a cheap service for free, keep them as a customer. Telcos in the US like to offer HBO Max or Amazon Prime to retain and attract subscribers, it's cheaper than other offers previously used.
They may or may not scan your data, but that's not the only business case that can be made...
What's the catch? (Score:2)
his telecom firm will offer users 100 GB of free cloud storage
Jio, Reliance's telecom subsidiary, serves 490 million subscribers, more than any rival in India. Jio offers access to at least 2GB of data per day for 14 days to subscribers for a total of $2.3.
So, what's the catch? Just how much will Ambani's companies rape customers' privacy?
You get what you pay for (Score:2)
If it's "free" then there's little motivation for the provider to make sure that the service is reliable and robust. And it's almost *certain* that they will use your data as the basis for advertising, or otherwise sell it to whoever will pay for it. "Free" is never really free.
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He is offering the 100 GB to Jio phone service subscribers. Its not free. The title is stupid, it’s bundled.
Everyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Everyone? No.
Everyone that subscribes to his telco service? Yes.
There's a difference.
Datamining Extravaganza! (Score:2)
No thank you! (Score:1)
So some rich jack hole wants 100GB of my valuable data for free?
Pass.
AI Training Data (Score:2)
Backups (Score:2)
I always thought that the NSA⦠(Score:1)
â¦should grant every US citizen 100GB of disk space on its own cloud network.
Why bother spying, when you can just have the people park their stuff with you in the first place?
Asian man sits down and thinks: (Score:2)
It's got some growth room. (Score:2)
That's a bit more than 1/3, but less than 1/2 of the Indian target audience, so he;s got some growing to do.
Having an effective monopoly telecoms provider is probably something to avoid though. If I were in the market to buy Indian telecoms service, I'd almost certainly go to somewhere else, several points down the list of competitors by size, just on that basis alone.