It can definitely be profitable. The actual "product" Storj is offering is rock-solid. And I, for one, will definitely use it. My only concern is whether the public actually cares enough to be smart about their security. A lot of times, success is about who gets to market first. And with people heavily invested (space-wise) in things like Dropbox, laziness about moving could outweigh the protection they'd get from moving to Storj.

Definitely. p2p is absolutely the way to go. I live near the Sony lot and they're STILL in a shambles, their company-wide system down, doing stuff by pen and paper!

Totally. End of the day, the client-facing portion of Storj needs to be as basic as Dropbox. And I'm guessing (hoping?) that Storj being p2p means that costs should be substantially lower to the consumer, since the majority of hardware and electricity costs are are spread among the user base?

I think that an important aspect of the launch is going to be convincing people that storing other peoples data on their computers is safe and easy.  We know it will be.  But there is a large number of people who will see that notion and their initial reaction will be concern about viruses and other people accessing their information.  It's going to take a while for them to warm up to the idea after it has been implemented and they see other people are doing fine.  It's the sociological factors that are going to be interesting to watch through the early phases of this tech.

I also think that there is going to be an added hurdle regarding the method of payment.  In order to compete with Dropbox and others for adoption, people are going to need to bond with the idea of crypto currencies

I think the social factors will be interesting but in the end, it is the tech that will ultimately speak for itself...it just might take some time for it to bridge the gap between tech savvy and the everyday user.  Very exciting times...

There are no limits - you can buy as much storage as you'd like if you are willing to pay for it, and you are able to host as many storage contracts as you have space for. Your own resources are your only limitation.

Storj can be an excellent example when explaining blockchain technology's value to people who are not into crypto currency yet.  Because it can be compared with dropbox and etc. which many people are using now.  It would be easier for them to understand and realized the power of blockchain technology.

Don't think there's a big deal to resume a previous contract. Just turn your node back up again and get another contract in the queue.
#tip - run it on a Linux box, you will have better uptime on it.


http://rs2img.memecdn.com/update_o_986903.jpg

Do help to spread the word and subscribe to the subreddit @ http://www.reddit.com/r/storj/

People use Dropbox and the like for a reason, they want certain to be available even in the event of a computer crash or hard drive failure.  Cloud storage like Storj also allows retrieval from any devices which is really where computing is going.  If I work on a presentation on my laptop I may want to present it from my iPhone with my micro projector for the iPhone.   I think the fact that people will have more drive space, just means that they will have more files that they want to protect files.

Cheaper hard drive space does mean cheaper Storj drive space because more people will put space online through farming.  That is what the network wants.  The money that can be mad will undoubtedly be driven by market forces.  In the beginning there will likely be more drive space than consumption.  As it catches on that will change.  I think over time there will be one or more decentralized storage options and there will be an open market for the consumer.  that is good no matter how you look at it.

Encryption of personal data is definitely the future. I really hope that more people start caring about their privacy. Its important.

On a side note, the GUI for DriveShare looks really nice and easy to use. Hopefully that will attract more users.