
Hive: Free unlimited cloud storage for you and your friends - rid
https://www.hive.im
======
marklittlewood
Is this a serious thing or are people always blinded by 'FREE'?

There is no way of getting information about the company on the company
website, you have to go to the company web app.

So you get free unlimited storage, ad funded and to target you better with
advertising they look at your content. This is hidden in the Terms of Service.
[https://beta.hive.im/terms/](https://beta.hive.im/terms/)

At the company web app, there is no information about the company, the
backers, the people etc. The 'about section' of the company is a bunch of
marketing speak [https://beta.hive.im/about/](https://beta.hive.im/about/)

There is an address if you look hard enough - in the Privacy section.
[https://beta.hive.im/privacy/](https://beta.hive.im/privacy/) It is in Hong
Kong. There is no information about team, backers etc.

Best of luck to anyone that tries this.

~~~
andybak
For the uses I have in mind they can pretty much do what they want with my
data - including lose it without warning or send it the NSA.

But yes - not everyone is going to approach this with their eyes open.

As in all things there's a tradeoff. I am perfectly happy with the tradeoff
Gmail offers me as long as I am kept informed and I'm happy with the tradeoff
here - which is that I don't assume anything as I've never heard of the
company.

So - I'm going to upload a huge directory of stuff that isn't personal and is
already safely backed up. In return I get web access to it without paying a
penny - and a 'sort-of' backup.

~~~
freehunter
Likewise, the biggest use I have for things like Dropbox or potentially Hive
is to store my personal collection of guitar tabs that I've curated, so
wherever I go I can still practice without having to remember to bring my
tabs. I also keep a collection of educational PDFs and ebooks as well as some
pictures I found on the Internet that I decided to keep for one reason or
another in case I need to link to them on Reddit or send a funny gif to a
friend. In college, I would put my notes there as well as homework assignments
or group projects that I need to share with classmates. Hell, I don't even
care if any of that were to be released to the public, let alone if the NSA or
private companies are snooping on it.

Then again, I'm fully aware of the dangers of cloud solutions. Others are not.
And that's the problem.

------
CJefferson
Won't let me drop a directory of files in, because one of them is a bittorrent
file (why are you looking so carefully at the types of my files?)

mp3s don't seem to come back bit-identical, obviously some editting going on
remotely.

So, don't trust this with files where you actually care about your data not
getting "adjusted".

~~~
RDeckard
How about a zip file?

~~~
CJefferson
I don't care enough to do deep experiments, but it seems if I upload files
Hive doesn't have "magic" for, they don't get changed. Also, another mp3
didn't get changed, so maybe they do some kind of cleanup on some?

~~~
randallsquared
Maybe it's slightly fuzzy deduplication?

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sdoering
So this becomes "You are not paying, so you are the product" with a twist. As
the premium plan gets cheaper, the more friends you invite, the saying goes
something like this:

"If you are not paying, you sell your friend's data as a product?"

Sorry, but that is some twisted pyramid scheme imho.

~~~
gothy
I guess it's about marketing Hive to people. If you bring them 100 customers,
and 5% of them will pay full price for Premium. Why shouldn't they give you
smth in return?

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vlunkr
I wonder what their game is here. Why is it free to share with 100 friends? I
can't see that it would be any cheaper for them. Also, 100 friends? When would
I ever want to share file storage with that many people?

~~~
rid
I think that they're trying to create a viral loop in order to attract
advertisers to their platform.

~~~
vlunkr
You're probably right. They expect you to join someone's free group and then
decide to pay for your own.

------
azurelogic
I really dislike the fact that this is totally anti-privacy which is one of
the hottest topics in cloud file storage today. Everyone is asking for things
to be more secure, and people are willing to pay for storage and security when
they need it. This is solving the wrong problem.

~~~
chrisabrams
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the privacy advocates are the
target market for this site.

I also believe that the cloud has proven people are willing to forgo some
privacy in exchange for the ease of use/access. I don't take part is such
activities, but many seem to.

~~~
smacktoward
_> I also believe that the cloud has proven people are willing to forgo some
privacy in exchange for the ease of use/access. I don't take part is such
activities, but many seem to._

Or they don't understand exactly what they are trading away in exchange for
the free service.

Which would be understandable, since it's not like any of those services go
out of their way to explain it to them. It's just marketed as a free lunch.

------
joshstrange
I am a heavy user of Plex and have about 600GB of video in my Dropbox via Plex
Cloud Sync. Hive has no desktop client as far as I can see which is already a
deal breaker as the machine I browse on is not the machine my video is stored
on. On top of all of this we have no clue how they plan to offer this free
storage other than "Ads".

Don't get me wrong $9/mo for unlimited data sounds nice but there is no way I
am using my upload pipe to move my 10-12TB of media into a cloud that I know
nothing about and could shut down next month.

To be fair I doubt I am the user they are targeting. It's not a "All your
media in the cloud" but rather "A way to share one-off video/picture/music in
the cloud which is not something I am interested in at all.

~~~
4k
I use plex and host all the content on my local HDD. You can buy 2x3GB Raid
drives for under $200. Much more cost effective imo. I wonder why you use
Dropbox to store all that data?

~~~
joshstrange
* I assume you mean 2x3TB :)

I use dropbox+drive for friends/family or if I'm not going to be at home. My
upload connection is decent for where I am but it can't handle multiple HD
streams (3+) so moving content I know people want into Dropbox means faster
streaming for them and less congestion on my network. I have 4x3TB + 1x1TB
drives currently (no raid, yes, yes, I know I need to do it) and those are
about filled up and my media server has no more room in it for more drives so
if I want to add more it would have to be external (I do have a couple eSata
ports though).

I am currently looking for a replacement, I've considered buying one of those
20-drive server rack mounts [1] and filling it with 3TB drives which at Raid 6
(zRaid 2 really since I would just use ZFS soft-raid) would give me ~54TB of
space. That should last me for a while yet :). At that point I would also
start looking into colocation (That way I wouldn't need the Cloud Sync) but
then I lose the VERY nice local speeds I get by having it all 10ft from my TV.

[1] Something like this [http://smile.amazon.com/NORCO-Mount-Hot-Swappable-
Server-RPC...](http://smile.amazon.com/NORCO-Mount-Hot-Swappable-Server-
RPC-4020/dp/B001NO7THO?sa-no-redirect=1) (First result on google, I would look
more before I decided of course)

------
leafsleep
"Download to mac"? Lemme know if they ever get out of the hipster startup
phase [http://i.imgur.com/DTKz15Z.png](http://i.imgur.com/DTKz15Z.png)

------
hobolobo
Everything about this says creepy.

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n1c
If only turning off the email notifications would turn off email
notifications.

------
jastanton
So it looks like the general consensus is people are not comfortable being the
product. They would rather pay a nominal fee. So it's funny if Hive charged
only like $0.99 / month or even $2 / mo I bet this launch would be received a
little more graciously.

~~~
robotresearcher
Young people may think differently.

------
Rhapso
Interestingly, the site breaks on vertical monitor orientation. Rather than
attempt to render it complains and asks the user to maximize the already
maximized window.

------
tuxone
Where can i access my profile?
[http://i.imgur.com/9zbI6ac.png](http://i.imgur.com/9zbI6ac.png)

~~~
xg15
I like the big sad "<your name> \- NO FRIENDS" smiley on the right. Even
facebook tried to be polite and avoided any "lol you have no fiends"
situation, how ridiculous it ever may be - and those guys rub it in your face
instead.

They must have some impressive social network analysis planned if they try so
many different tactics to get you to build a large network quickly.

------
mcovey
"Hive is the first free unlimited cloud service in the world."

Sure it is.

------
uberneo
god knows where the hell our personal data will be residing .. better to use
[http://owncloud.org/](http://owncloud.org/)

~~~
crawlerguys
Owncloud is the simplest way to store your files, all you need is a web
hosting account and just install the file its that simple, and here is guide
[http://www.crawlerguys.com/how-to-start-your-own-cloud-
stora...](http://www.crawlerguys.com/how-to-start-your-own-cloud-storage-
without-touching-code/)

------
bratfarrar
If it's free, you're the product.

~~~
icebraining
HN is free, yet here you are.

~~~
marklittlewood
HN is free but you as users are the product. HN is a fantastic marketing tool
for Y-combinator. They do a pretty good job of keeping the balance right
though.

------
ARCarr
If you scroll right the site breaks.

~~~
dubcanada
How are you scrolling right?

~~~
Robadob
Middle click generally gives you a cursor which you can drag to scroll in any
direction, not sure if it's limited to chrome.

------
iliaznk
The logo looks a bit creepy to me.

~~~
Frount
Looks strangely reminiscent of the final panel here:
[http://pbfcomics.com/168/](http://pbfcomics.com/168/)

