Yeah it's actually cheaper (and simpler :) ) to sign up with a nextcloud provider if all you want is a nextcloud account. There are other reasons to run your own instance, but honestly I think most of them come down to the hacker novelty factor. One noteworthy one is having total control over your own data, I guess. Depending on the provider it's not always simple to export all of your data to migrate somewhere else if you ever want to.

For folks who would use nextcloud if they didn't have to care about all this server admin stuff I would definitely recommend Hetzner. Cloudamo [1] is also a good option with servers in North America, for people there who care about location.

[1] https://cloudamo.com/store/nextcloud

Wasabi is likely even cheaper at $6 a month for 1000 GB (minimum) [0] and free egress to go with it (similar plans from Backblaze too [1]).

Scaleway is pretty impressive with its pricing too with 75 GB (storage + egress) free per month [2]

[0] https://wasabi.com/cloud-storage-pricing/#three-info

[1] https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html

[2] https://www.scaleway.com/en/object-storage/

Wait, you're not talking about the same thing as the comment you responded to. Parent comment was about managed Nextcloud hosting.

Yes, Scaleway and Wasabi don't, but Backblaze does in some limited form: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup.html

Does Hetzner's storage share also have snapshots or backups?

That page seems focused on the file storage aspect. Does Storage Share also include other Nextcloud features like calendar?

Yes, I'm also using Hetzner and have not run into any limits in what plugins you can install and use yet. They used to call 'storage share' just 'Nextcloud', but moved it to the new name for licensing reasons.

I don't know what type of hardware they're running their Nextcloud instances on, but I've been using calendar/contacts and public file sharing (since Firefox Send went down) on the cheapest plan for a while now and it's fine. I also dabbled a bit in using Nextcloud's maps, video calling, bookmarks and rss reader applications and it all works OK, although I didn't stick to them because they're not the most rich in features. I had to Hetzner email support a few times and got a helpful reply within 1-2 work days, sometimes quicker, which I thought was fine.

I noticed the Storage Share page doesn't mention anything about server-side encryption - is this an option?

Yes, you can enable the "default encryption module" in the apps page like any other Nextcloud instance, as well as other apps, e.g., 2FA.

Why can't these services have a more realistic pricing model. Like you pay once for storage, and per amount of data used, and power?

Paying a monthly fee for data you don't access seems like a dishonest pricing model. (I can see that a part of the fee has to be per-month, but it shouldn't be so large).

How is it more realistic to have somebody maintain hardware and software over time, and not pay for that service over time? Their business doesn't care if "you only buy the hard drive once".

The point is that a subscription with a 2TB harddrive is much more expensive than a subscription with a 100GB harddrive.

I just want a to pay a fair price. Not a price based on ungrounded assumptions.

It's like going to a restaurant where the food is cheap but the drinks are crazy expensive.

Whatever disk capacity you buy your data sits on multiple disks running 24/7. It costs electricity + maintenance when disks break.

If you want a fixed price you have to do it your self. It will be cheaper, but less safe, less accessible and more involved.

Again, I totally understand this. What I don't understand is the huge price difference.