[joemaller1]

Dropbox, OneDrive and others are dangerous because they default to cloud-first. To "save disk space", they upload your files and provide a proxy/placeholder for your actual content.

If something happens to the provider, or they decide they don't like you or your files, your data is gone. Worse than gone, because you still have the empty proxies -- the husks of your files.

I personally know of more than one instance where seemingly innocuous data triggered some automated system at Dropbox and the user was locked out of their files without recourse.

If you're using cloud storage, make *absolutely certain* you have it set to download all files. If your cloud storage exceeds the drive space of a laptop (small businesses, etc), get a cheap dedicated PC and a big drive, then set up at least one dedicated cloud mirror.

Local-first cloud storage is great, but the potential for catastrophic data-loss is not even remotely close to zero.

[braza]

Some years ago I lost my device and I got in first place the experience on how I was dependent of those cloud services for almost everything since email until my photographs.

Fast forward I made exactly that: I got another cloud provider and I started to sync to another 2 physical local devices one with by-sync (remote to device and device to remote) and another one only local to remote on top of a local NAS and hard drive.

[teo_zero]

> Dropbox, OneDrive and others are dangerous because they default to cloud-first. To "save disk space", they upload your files and provide a proxy/placeholder for your actual content.

Your comment seems to address their client, not their service. TFA is about using their storage with a newly defined access pattern.