IMO the main pro of cloud storage is that the provider's engineers are much better at doing backups than you are. You won't lose your data if, like most people, you only have one copy of everything and your hard drive is destroyed.

The main con is that the provider can deny you access without warning. You probably won't get an explanation or a real chance to appeal the decision.

So far that second thing hasn't been a common problem for normal users but I would still keep local copies of the data which I can't easily replace.

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As a cloud systems engineer who has experienced data failures in multiple consumer cloud services, I do not trust cloud services as a backup just because they are cloud services.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 points 1 day ago

Your second point is why paying for such services makes a real difference.

Companies like storj.io, backblaze, or any other cloud storage/backup provider provide a service for a fee with (not really) clear usage rules. If you're encrypting your stuff before it goes to the cloud, you're pretty safe from scanning, and if you have a contract for a given space and bandwidth, the worst you'll probably run into is overage fees.