Google Rolls Out Paid Storage Services

I've never understood the concept of online storage, especially for home users. Even as little as Goggle is charging, you could buy a new drive every year, and use it for backup, rotating them off-site.

While it is true you could do that, there is also the advantage of having access to your data from anywhere on the web. Not to mention there is a psychological component - it seems easier to upload/download data than it does to buy an external hard drive, hook it up, back up your data, take it someplace to secure it. Not to mention the idea of rotating them and if it should happen you need to go get it to retrieve your data.

Also, how many ISPs would be happy with you pushing 6GB up? That will get you capped with many ISPs. Local storage is about 100x faster and you don't have to deal with your ISP.

I don't know how many would cap you, but nothing says you have to push it all at once.

The economics and data communications limitations we live with in the USA prevent this business from being viable.

I would disagree with this. As apparently would many of the businesses getting into this space.

I am a bit surprised and disappointed Google plans to charge though. Ah well.