Cloud (service)

In consumer technology, a cloud service typically refers to a data processing service provided by a service provider (often product manufacturer), often for a periodic fee, without control over or even information about what infrastructure provides that service. Typical examples of such services include data storage, off-device data processing, easy access to an internet-connected device from anywhere with an internet connection and synchronization between devices.

A defining feature of a cloud service is absence of management of the infrastructure that processes the data — presented in marketing as a plus for the sake of convenience, but restricting choices consumers may want to make themselves.

The term "cloud services" borrows from a term cloud computing, which is vague to the point that FSF recommends avoiding it,^[1] and in context of consumer technology the term inherits its vagueness. A defining feature of a cloud service is absence of management of the infrastructure that processes the data. It's true in cloud computing as well, but referring to the perspective of a service provider and a party that supplies them with computing infrastructure, e. g. servers, disk drives and network hardware.

Notably, a "cloud service" in consumer marketing may refer to a data processing service provided by the manufacturer that is not itself based on cloud computing from the service provider's perspective. A service provider might be in complete physical possession of the infrastructure involved in a service, hence it not being "cloud" for the provider, but manufacturer might still advertise the service as "cloud service" to consumers if the provider manages it for them without offering alternatives or prominently disclosing its existence.

When features of a product rely on data processing outside of consumers' devices, there has to be another device responsible for these functions.

Cloud services function on devices provided by a service provider, with their specifics or even existence hidden from the user behind user interfaces in an effort to simplify user experience.

One adage is often quoted in relation to cloud services: "There is no cloud, it's just somebody else's computer"^[2]. This means that the failure of a device you know nothing about can result in your device/service not working.

Operating a cloud service requires ongoing expenses for the entire duration for which that service is provided. Marketing professionals realize that requiring an ongoing expense from the user for a given product reflects negatively on its perception, and sometimes try to hide this by doing any of the following:

• Offering additional features or service capacity for an additional fee
• Including a limited amount of service with the product purchase
• Withholding the information about cloud services being involved in some of the product's functionality and potentially introducing a subscription fee post-purchase for the product to function fully or at all
  • This often happens after the company that previously offered a cloud service is acquired by another company that isn't as concerned with remaining in good standing with customers of the acquired company

In cases where a product does not provide the ability to choose a service it uses, shutdown of the pre-configured cloud service may cause discontinuation bricking or loss of product features.

Because cloud computing providers, which cloud services are often built upon, have to be large in order to offer competitive advantages to their customers (as pertains to this article, particularly product manufacturers), there are very few cloud computing providers in existence. Thus, every one of them operates the infrastructure under a large number of cloud services.

Some of the most famous cloud providers include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud.

While they take great care to ensure their smooth operation, they sometimes fail and cause widespread service disruptions because of the great number of companies relying on their services.^[3][4][5]

A service provider requires some level of access to the data it processes. Unless access to the service is engineered on consumer's side to minimize such access (e. g. end-to-end encryption), all of the processed data is visible to the service provider^[2], where it can be leaked as a result of a cybersecurity incident or used for purposes to which consumers did not consent (such as included in machine learning datasets^{[citation needed]} or sold to advertising companies^{[citation needed]}).

Providers may offer some access controls for the data they possess and process, but most of the time they are also the ones enforcing them, which renders them ineffective for restricting providers' access due to a conflict of interest. There may be legally binding promises of effectiveness of these controls in their terms of service, but violations of policies established through these controls are difficult to detect and legal enforcement is difficult in general.

In the United States, federal limits on gathering evidence mean you are not usually required to supply a password to unlock a device that you have, however others may be compelled to release your data.

Service company can deprive you of your data/services. For example if you lose login credentials, as might happen when a person dies, or your account is stolen, or the service provider terminates the account. (see for example, Microsoft account, Google account).

Main article: Forced cloud

Cloud services bundled with products often don't come with the ability to change providers for those services. This puts the product into a direct dependency from the service providers chosen by the manufacturer (often themselves), which:

• artificially prevents demand for the same service from other providers, preventing the emergence of competitive markets in respective market niches, giving financial advantage to chosen providers for non-competitive reasons, as well as preventing users from switching from providers they don't trust, e. g. after security incidents
• threatens ownership over the product, as terms of service can be altered unilaterally through technical means, and prevention of this through legal means is difficult or impossible
• limits the use of the product in unusual environments which manufacturer-chosen providers have no willingness or capacity to support, since they provide service for all users of the product, and therefore prioritize features that benefit wider circles of users, effectively reducing product capabilities. A particularly frequent example of this is functioning of a product with no internet access, which, in addition to being desirable to some users running private networks where access to the internet is restricted or unavailable, is a safeguard against accidents on service provider's side, such as when internet-enabled bed accessories by Eight Sleep were rendered non-adjustable due to an outage at Amazon Web Services^[6] (also showcasing the problem of service concentration)

A lot of cloud services use needlessly specialized protocols, which allows service providers to maintain monopolies over their respective niches. Use of more generic protocols provides more choice to consumers, incentivizes competition between service providers and creates business opportunities for new service providers to emerge.

For example, the impact of Amazon PhotosPlus discontinuation would be minimal if it were to allow connection to generic file storage rather than relying on Amazon's specialized photo storage service.

Main article: Self-hosting

Some cloud services can be adequately replaced with self-hosted alternatives, where consumers run compatible software on hardware they control.

• File synchronization services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, Mega.
• Remote device access, as in Wyze cameras and select Bosch dishwashers.
• Software as a service online applications, like Google Workspace, Microsoft Office 365, Adobe creative cloud, Games as a service.
• AI compute (inference) servers which power AI chatbots and agents. (for example, Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot).

• Content delivery network (CDN)
• Internet of things