The Google printer "solution" has always struck me as an exceedingly stupid solution. I have a local microcomputer, and a local printer yet the solution is to send my data to the other side of the world and then push it back on to the printer I am stood looking at? Why? It's stupid. Why not talk directly to the printer without the requirement of an Internet connection?
The same goes for sending files via Dropbox to someone next to you on an iDevice. Since it's very difficult for me to send data from my Android device to my wife's iPad or even from my MacBook to my wife's iPad3, the "solution" is to send it to the other side of the world on to Dropbox's servers for her to retrieve it.
Back in thte 50s when people had visions of an interconnected world and a utopian human future, filled with spaceflight and wonder, I am pretty sure they didn't have visions of needlessly sending data through 50+ network nodes just to get it back again on a device right next to them.
It's so stupid; if you had proposed this "solution" 20 years ago they'd have laughed you out of the room, yet today Chromebooks ("store all of YOUR data ELSEWHERE! Struggle to get it back! Find it impossible to send to a device NEXT TO YOU!") and the associated cloud solutions are all the rage.
Good point, but email is understood to indicate remote people, even if in truth your boss is sat next to you.
Printers don't really fit this model - when you tell something to print (for the printer on your desk), getting it sent to the other side of the world just to come back is daft, energy inefficient and wasteful.
The same goes for sending files via Dropbox to someone next to you on an iDevice. Since it's very difficult for me to send data from my Android device to my wife's iPad or even from my MacBook to my wife's iPad3, the "solution" is to send it to the other side of the world on to Dropbox's servers for her to retrieve it.
Back in thte 50s when people had visions of an interconnected world and a utopian human future, filled with spaceflight and wonder, I am pretty sure they didn't have visions of needlessly sending data through 50+ network nodes just to get it back again on a device right next to them.
It's so stupid; if you had proposed this "solution" 20 years ago they'd have laughed you out of the room, yet today Chromebooks ("store all of YOUR data ELSEWHERE! Struggle to get it back! Find it impossible to send to a device NEXT TO YOU!") and the associated cloud solutions are all the rage.
It's stupid.