this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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Highlights:

  • Rakuten Drive offers free 10GB storage and unlimited file transfers, unlike competitors.
  • Integrates with Microsoft 365 for document viewing and editing.
  • Targets both individuals and businesses with separate plans.
  • Paid "PRO" version increases storage to 1TB, allows bigger file uploads, and extends transfer link expiration.
  • Future integration with Rakuten's loyalty program planned.
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[–] [email protected] 157 points 10 months ago (1 children)

unlimited file transfers, unlike competitors.

Looking into my crystal ball...

I give this 2-3 months before file transfers are limited due to multi-terrabyte daily transfers from accounts hosting pirated media.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

...or just due to plain old corporate greed enshittification.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

Nah, that will come 3 months later when to keep providing a world class service they will have to discontinue the free accounts.

But don't worry, they will give existing customers great upgrade deals.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am inclined to think the privacy protections on this would be awful.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Encrypt everything before uploading it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

For 10 GB of storage? Meh. It feels like setting this up would be a headache unless someone really needed it for something iffy. It’s so tiny.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

~~1TB for $8/month isn't bad. Cheaper than Google anyway.~~ Never mind, it's actually more expensive than Google and others. See below.

I'd rather go for something with E2EE anyway.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Hetzner Storagebox is $3.5/M for 1TB

[–] ObsidianZed 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

What are you basing that off of??

Google is 2TB for $10/month.

$8.33/month with the annual plan.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This says $20/month. https://one.google.com/about/plans

Is there a cheaper drive-only option?

[–] PrefersAwkward 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The page you linked shows an annual plan of 100$ for 2 TB which means 8.33 per month.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Doh, I misread. I saw $20 and thought that was the monthly price, but that's actually for 2 months, before annual discount. Never mind.

So...yeah, who is Rakuten trying to compete with?

[–] Tangent5280 2 points 10 months ago

Cryptomator is free and about as easy as encryption comes.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago

For a while, until they don't.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

10 Gigabytes! That are almost two 4K movies with heavy compression.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

is* not are

/s (also i wanna appreciate the grammer nerds who motivated me to make this comment ).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh, boy! As an American consumer, I'm even more perplexed what the hell they are.

Like 15 years ago, Rakuten seemed to be a normal ecommerce site. I think they bought buy.com or something to get a foothold in the US market. Then they pivoted to being some sort of cashback referral service.

I'm not really sure why that would lead customers to think "yeah, I want cloud storage from the people who made a weird janky digital simulation of the Piggly Wiggly Value Club Card!"

(AWS made it work because they could say "we have the infrastructure to host one of the busiest sites on earth, it's good enough for you", but Rakuten does not have that credibility in the US)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They do a lot of things, mostly related to online retailing in Japan. They bought Ebates, presumably to get all the shopping data they collect, it wasn't really a pivot. (Also they'd been doing financial-ish stuff like rewards programs before apparently. I went and read their Wikipedia article when I saw this post.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They also bought Kobo, a Kindle competitor that I actually like. (Partially because you can still easily remove their DRM).

[–] Telodzrum 1 points 10 months ago

The hardware is better, too. It'll be a cold day in hell before I go back to a Kindle.

[–] laverabe 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

SaaSS (service as a software substitute) bullshit

It is common for SaaSS dis-services to charge a monthly fee for use. Usually one SaaSS site does not substitute for another, so if users become unhappy with one dis-service provider it is no easy matter to switch to another. When users become dependent on one, it can gouge them at will with repeated small price increases that over time add up to a lot. We view the loss of freedom inherent in SaaSS as worse than the cost in money, but when a dis-service has you over a barrel, the cost can be painful. Thus, even users who don't see deeper than the bottom line should beware of SaaSS.

Businesses should host their own servers.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Speedrunning Dropbox, box.com, ....

[–] bruhduh 5 points 10 months ago

If they support webdav then it means free 10gb swap "ram"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Who is this even for? 10 gigs is a rounding era in drive space.

[–] NateNate60 6 points 10 months ago

People aren't storing massive amounts of data on cloud storage. For text document storage or even a moderate number of images, 10 GB is enough for many people.

[–] AxiomPraxis 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Rakuten are the ones who make Kobo, a Kindle competitor that's more popular outside of the US - I have a Kobo.

Likely this is to eventually integrate into their Kobo device offerings, to let you upload your own .epubs (as opposed to Amazon .mobi). 10GB may be small fish for everything else but for ebook storage it's more than you'd ever need.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Ah makes sense

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

And what protocols do they support?

[–] bartvbl 3 points 10 months ago

For personal backups I can recommend Jottacloud, although they only have servers in Norway.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter -4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Is it 10 Gigabyte or Terabyte?