The rise and fall of online storage in the past decade: persistence is not easy, and free storage is not sustainable

Network storage has always been a way of storing data adopted by many people, but in recent years, due to the influence of many factors such as policies and profits, domestic network disk operators have closed down one after another.

On November 30, NetEase Cloud Disk announced that it would stop service. According to the notice released by NetEase Cloud Disk on September 23, 2019, NetEase Cloud Disk will close the wp.163.com portal on November 30, 2019, and users will not be able to access it at that time. With the closure of NetEase Cloud Disk, the former situation of separatist wars in the cloud disk industry has also come to an end. Currently, only Baidu Cloud Disk is still holding on to the domestic cloud disk market.

The rise and fall of the online disk industry over the past decade

From the earliest launch of 115 online disk to the present, the online disk industry has experienced the rise and fall of the industry in ten years. The online disk industry has attracted Internet companies, telecom operators, equipment manufacturers, including Baidu, Tencent, Huawei, and Telecom, and formed an Internet enterprise camp led by Baidu and Tencent, a domestic communication service provider camp led by Telecom and Mobile, and an overseas Internet camp led by Microsoft and Dropbox during its heyday. The free storage space brought by these companies also allows netizens to enjoy the convenience brought by cloud storage in the Internet era.

However, two long-standing problems in the online disk industry have always plagued the industry's development and eventually led to its decline. The first is the security of online disks. The original intention of online disks was to facilitate personal storage for netizens, but because companies have no right to review the content of users' online disks, online disks have become a tool for spreading illegal content such as pornography and piracy, and have become a key target of rectification by national regulatory authorities.

The second is the issue of profitability. The number of online disk users is huge, requiring online disk providers to invest heavily in servers, bandwidth, and manpower. However, online disk providers have not yet found a suitable profit model for personal services, and users are not willing to pay. This means that the vast majority of online disk providers do not make money.

Under the influence of these two factors, the online disk industry has entered a shutdown mode, with 360, Sina Weipan, UC Pan, Xunlei Kuaipan, and NetEase Cloud Disk all announcing their closure. With the cessation of NetEase Cloud Disk service, the free era of the online disk industry has come to an end, leaving only Baidu Cloud Disk to support the industry alone. What the outside world is concerned about is whether Baidu can explore a path to commercialization in the next decade of the online disk industry?

Baidu's mobile ecosystem activates the cloud storage industry

According to QuestMobile data, Baidu Netdisk has 600 million users and a market share of over 85%, making it the absolute leader in the netdisk industry. Against the backdrop of companies in the netdisk industry "fleeing" one after another, Baidu Netdisk General Manager Tang Lihua said in an interview with the media that Baidu has always been optimistic about the personal cloud service track and believes that the upcoming 5G will reshape the value of personal cloud services. His words also revealed that Baidu Netdisk's positioning has quietly changed from a storage tool to a "personal cloud service", and this positioning change has a larger background, which is Baidu's firm mobile ecological strategy.

In this strategic context, Baidu Netdisk has also upgraded its positioning from a tool to an operating system-level portal, that is, based on data storage and transmission, it can access more services. On the one hand, the services come from Baidu Netdisk's own service capability upgrades, and on the other hand, it accesses third-party services through an open platform.

In the latest Baidu Netdisk, in addition to the two basic services of "backup" and "transfer", many practical functions such as notes and photo search have been added. The photo search function based on Baidu's leading image recognition technology is particularly worth mentioning. It can intelligently identify the content of users' pictures in Baidu Netdisk. Users only need to enter keywords to find the photos they want in the massive amount of pictures on the Netdisk, which greatly facilitates users' picture search.

[[254315]]

In addition, Baidu Netdisk has also launched a "membership mode" and a "single payment" mode based on user habits. These two payment modes are respectively aimed at high-frequency users and low-frequency users of Baidu Netdisk. High-frequency users can enjoy more than 20 privileges by paying a membership fee of 30 yuan, while low-frequency users can enjoy the service in a "single payment" mode that costs less.

In order to provide users with richer services, Baidu Netdisk will also introduce third-party services, such as Meitu XiuXiu, Kingsoft Document, Xiaodu Scan and more than a dozen other third-party software services, and content partners such as Fan Deng Reading, Qingting FM, and Xiaoetong, so that users can process personal data in the cloud while enjoying high-quality content.

The upcoming 5G era is a critical period for Baidu's ecosystem to develop. As part of Baidu's "connected services" strategy, Baidu Netdisk will also bring greater possibilities for personal cloud services in the 5G era.