Clouds are a Stupid Metaphor

Why is the cloud the prevailing metaphor for pervasive data storage?

Clouds are anything but pervasive. They're amorphous, lacking any substance except for water and dust, with unclear boundaries, and constantly shifting form. They dissipate if it gets too warm, and the only time I ever interact with them is when they rain on me.

What on Earth would make me want to entrust any kind of precious data with an entity like that?

Fuck clouds.

When I upload data somewhere on the internet, it's because I want my specific data accessible by me wherever I am. I am one user, but I have many devices for interacting with the web. I have a laptop, a desktop, and a mobile phone, all with full time internet access.

Whichever device I use, it's me using it. So the device shouldn't matter, my data should. My data represents an extension of my thoughts.

I don't want to upload my thoughts into a fluffy puff of vapour that goes wherever the wind blows it. The most advanced weather tracking systems in the world can't tell you where the clouds will be a week from now. That's a symbol of trustworthy data storage?

Seriously, fuck clouds.

The metaphor should be us. My data should be my presence on the internet, my twin brother, my avatar, digital me. When I'm on my laptop and I want to access a document I wrote on my home computer, I want it from a rock solid source that stays put, can be reached any time, and knows me as well as I know me.

I want the entity I'm interacting with to essentially be me, a mirror-me, because it was me that created the data I want when I happened to be at another computer. Digital-me knows which version of the document I mean. When I get some document again later, I'm reaching into the past to get it from the me that put it there. I'm not reaching into a fog. Or, at least, I'd rather not be reaching into a fog.

The metaphor should be our digital counterparts, the reflections of ourselves that will more and more become an extension of us, and in the far future maybe even integrate with us. It's embryonic stage is forming now, in our preference settings, our blogs, our shared galleries, our profiles, our shopping histories, our donations, and all the data that we are slowly offloading from our brains into decentralized hard drives around the world.

I don't want that digital me floating around in the random ebbs and flows of a cumulus cloud. I want it to coalesce into something specific, and representative.

Wait... I just realized I can't find an email from a friend that I think I downloaded on my other computer, but I'm sure I stored it on a remote server. Now I need to access it from my mobile phone and can't find it, and I'm not sure which device, service, or connection isn't synced with the latest data.

Maybe for the time being a cloud is an apt metaphor after all.

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