Is the Cloud overrated?

[Iggy]

While I would admit that there is little to attract me to the idea, I already know of one internet based application that friends of mine are finding very useful.

My best man at my weeding is a licensed plumber. He uses Intuit's Quickbooks to help keep his accounts straight. Since he has an accountant, he uses the internet version of Quickbooks and no longer has to transfer files to his accountant. They both can log into a central site and the latest information is available to either of them.

They've been using this setup for about two year now, and it seems to have worked well. I can see where, if there was a need to share information with multiple people or computers/devices, an internet based application might be well suited.

Frankly, I still expect the bulk of my own computing to be based on my own hardware, but when I think of how much time I spend on the internet I have to ask, "aren't we already sort of doing this anyway?".

[Iggy]

Your best man (and maybe his accountant) is a dream-come-true for the harvesters pushing cloud computing.  My paranoid 2 cents.

Yeah, you're paranoid (but so are a lot of other people , so that hardly concerns me).
The point you're missing is that there are valid applications that when shared over the internet save time and simply real work. I wouldn't expect many of you to understand, as its not real likely that any of you have finances complicated enough to warrant hiring an accountant.
Have any of you thought that a forum dedicated to a long dead computer system, that supports a community that barely has functional browsers might not be the place to look for the most valid opinions related to new ideas in computing?

[Iggy]

I'm glad to see at least one reasonable post. And I do apologize for needling everybody to get to this point.

Yes, I too use other computers, but I have one system set up with AROS (and that Amiga like system is really beginning to impress me). I also have put together a Powermac system with the hope of running MorphOS on it when the next revision is released. As to a 'real' Amiga. I'm not about to pay the insane sums currently demanded for these to get back to running old software dead slow. AROS (with integrated UAE) or straight emulation is close enough for me.

And I don't use true Cloud computing apps to any extent, but I do see the validity of the concept for SOME uses.

And for now, Amiga and Amiga like systems may be a relatively dead issue, but they have to be the most interesting developments in retro computing.

I just got tired of everyone dumping on the cloud concept.
While a lot of the focus may just be companies looking for new ways to generate revenue, there is a legitimate place for this technology.