It’s getting clouded – space in the cloud environment

Just now I was writing about something else entirely on this blog when the GIZMODO extension I used with Chrome popped up with the headline, “Get 50GB Free Storage for Android.” Eyebrow raised, I impulsive clicked the link and followed the article’s instructions to get Box‘s Android app “right now” to get 50GB of cloud storage for free forever.

True to their word, I got my 50GB free. While this is a pretty sweet deal—and I do encourage any fellow Android user to take them up on their 30-day offer—as the app downloaded and I registered for another cyber locker service, I began to think, ‘Do I actually need this space? What will I use it for?’

I asked myself this because I have so many cloud locker services in my life. I have a Dropbox account, I uploaded (what few music files I have left these days) to Google Music (even if you aren’t supposed to have it in Australia!) and I use Google Docs (which introduced any file uploads in December 2010). Similarly, all sorts of things on my Android phone are backed up by Google, not least my photos which are automagically uploaded to a private album in Google+ using Instant Upload. So I come back to the question, do I actually need this 50GB of space?

I’ve been thinking about space to store digital files for awhile. I remember talking at length to a few friends in the pre-cloud as a mainstream product era about what the ever increasing size of computer harddrives and external harddrives meant. I’ve long been fascinated by the sheer volume of media content so many people I know have stored on devices both physical and digital. And of all the friends I have asked why they have so many movies if they haven’t watched 80% of them, and at least 20% they probably never will, to date no one has provided me with a (satisfactory) answer. Is this the era of digital hoarders? Are we just digital equivalents of old men with piles of newspapers stacked floor to ceiling in their apartments? Do we really need all this digital space?

I am as yet to actually commit any of this thinking to a tangible, permanent form on this blog. So I thought I might turn the thinking outward. So I ask anyone who cares to answer, what does space mean to you in a cloud environment?