- Dropbox will introduce a metered data service.
- Sunsetting unlimited Dropbox storage was necessary to protect the experience of all users.
- Crypto mining and reselling storage were named examples of gaming Dropbox policy.
Cloud infrastructure has become a fundamental aspect of the crypto industry, with cloud providers Amazon Web Services, Hetzner, and OVH accounting for 69% of the nodes on the Ethereum mainnet. However, in a blow to the crypto industry, cloud storage provider Dropbox has scaled back its offerings due to the abuse of its unlimited cloud storage solution by certain users, including cloud miners.
Dropbox Cuts Unlimited Storage
In response to the misuse of its unlimited storage solution, Dropbox said it was shifting its Business Advanced customers from a flat fee model to a metered service starting November 1.
Expanding on this, the company revealed some customers were using the unlimited storage for purposes other than running a legitimate business. Dropbox added that recent months have seen “a surge of this behavior,” potentially impacting the experience of other users.
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“We found a growing number of customers were buying Advanced subscriptions not to run a business or organization, but instead for purposes like crypto and Chia mining, unrelated individuals pooling storage for personal use cases, or even instances of reselling storage.” The Dropbox statement read.
The company acknowledged that sunsetting its “all the space as you need” policy would disappoint some users. Still, it maintained that enforcing “acceptable” and “unaccepted” uses of its service would be unfeasible.
On the Flipside
- Crypto cloud miners used Dropbox’s service as it was advertised.
- Dropbox users who signed up for unlimited storage may argue that the policy change breaches trust.
- Cloud mining is a legitimate industry; however, scam companies, such as Fancy Crypto, Happy Miner, IDMining, and NFTProX, as named by Analytics Insights, operate within the space.
Why This Matters
Proof-of-work mining is an already highly competitive and resource-hungry operation. With Dropbox closing the door on unlimited storage, the infrastructure squeeze will likely intensify competition among miners.
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