Despite the option of free storage, my clients appreciate the value in #FOREVERStorage, recognize the price as a bargain.
They line up to get your business, your data, your subscription. But what they offer does not stack up.
That doesn’t diminish the significance of the financial investment necessary to launch your #DigitalEstate. But those who grasp the value say things like these…
- I no longer have to pay an infinite monthly or annual fee for subscription-based cloud storage.
Additionally, you don’t have to worry that your card has expired. If you choose our installment plan, it is only 24-months ‘til Paid-In-Full. If your card fails one month, you do not lose your storage.
- I will be able to pass this down to my children / grandchildren / the next leader of our business or organization … even if they don’t have the password.
We provide a document to include with your will showing that your account is rightfully theirs. You can find this ADDENDUM for YOUR WILL HERE.
- I will get much better value from insurance claims when I store the pictures and receipts in my storage – it’s accessible proof of the condition, cost, and replacement value of my belongings.
One of the many “outside the box” uses of storage is to add legal documents in a private album – to include insurance documentation, photos, video, and receipts for what you have insured, wills, POAs, end-of-life planning. You can download the checklists I’ve created for INSURANCE and for ADVANCE PLANNING.
- I don’t have to worry about which phone carrier or device type I choose.
We enable you to back up your phone AND sync moving forward, so a lost phone, broken phone, switching carriers, or choosing a new device platform – NONE of this affects the existence and viability of your photos. IN FACT, you can connect multiple phones to one account – so both you and your partner can auto-sync your phones to the same account.
- I know that I won’t login to find photos, video, and files missing.
True Story – a colleague of mine had purchased storage. She was teaching others to use storage. She put her videos – the ones in which her daughter interviewed her grandfather about his service in World War II – on YouTube. They watched them. They shared them. They were passionate about the memories. BUT, she never loaded them into her FOREVER Storage, and one day, she went to YouTube to share the video with someone and it was gone. Poof. No explanation. No customer care. Just gone. YouTube was free, but there certainly was a cost when it failed her.
So, read those user agreements for free, subscription, and included storage options.* They are nearly exclusively about protecting the vendor, not you – and they often blur or eliminate your copyright control of what you load there.
*I’ve included links to some of these agreements at the bottom of this blog post.
- I will not turn on my computer to the “blue screen of death” and suffer the loss of my pictures.
When you purchase space from #DanisPixelPlace, if your computer crashes, you can log in from ANY connected device to access your files online in your #FOREVERStorageAccount – any time, anywhere. If you want to replace your local backup, our #FOREVERValetSoftware enables you to do a full download of all your files and metadata.
The competition can’t compete with FOREVER Storage. Free is never truly free.
- I will have a secure permanent place to store the photos sent to me by everyone from my bestie and my children to my professional photographer.
E-mails, text messages, thumb drives – they get lost, deleted, corrupt. Mass deletes happen before we remember that we were saving something from that hot sweaty summer in 2005. You can upload pictures, voicemail, video directly from the message to your FOREVER Storage. Links sent to professional photos can be lost in the e-mail and messaging abyss.
- I no longer fear my external hard drive, USB drives, SD cards, etc. becoming obsolete or damaged.
Anything portable is more susceptible to damage than those devices that sit still. A desktop computer typically outlasts a laptop. An installed hard drive typically outlasts an EHD. Thumb drives are little and even more susceptible to loss and damage.
One of my clients was carrying her photos everywhere – on USB drives as a collection of keyrings. She was afraid to leave them behind in case something happened to her home. Can you imagine carrying all that on your keys? Further imagine, please, the jangling and clacking together of these devices.
Those poor little pixels!
- Should we suffer a catastrophic loss of our property, we will still have all the memories, the legal documents, photos, video, and more that we have stored in our #FOREVERAccount.
We want to be sure you keep the physical copies of things like wills and birth certificates – you will need those – but we have found that storing the digital copies for reference or to review until new paper copies can be secured can be a big, big help.
One client’s son suffered a total loss at his apartment. A fire took every belonging he had – including the sentimental ones. Fortunately, they had taken photos of everything he had insured. They added scans of owner’s manuals and receipts. His insurance provider was impressed by the speed and accuracy with which he could submit his claim. Furthermore, those sentimental and irreplaceable things he had were photographed and the stories recorded. While the loss of them causes a twinge of grief, the photos and stories enable him to continue to wax nostalgic any time he wishes!
You can download the checklists I’ve created for INSURANCE and for ADVANCE PLANNING.
- I’ll never have to pay to have my files converted to new file types again.
This is HUGE. Every single file you upload to your FOREVER storage is likely to become obsolete someday. But not to worry – we’ve got your back. When the industry-standard file types change (and we all know they will), we will automatically migrate every file in permanent storage to the new file type. You don’t have to do a thing to make it happen.
If you haven’t read it before, click here to take a look at our #FOREVERGuarantee. Ours is truly about serving you, from this moment, through tomorrow, and many years after your passing and mine.
These people who see the possibility of and value in purchasing #PermanentStorage sometimes do a little math. It might look something like this:
Carbonite is excellent for what it’s intended to store. It’s not intended for photos, and it has no legacy plan for your photos.
Let’s say you’re paying $100 year for Carbonite. If you are currently…
- 20s or 30s, it’s safe to assume you’ll spend well over $6000 on storage in your lifetime.
- 40s-50s, safely assume you’ll spend over $4k.
- 60+, minimally, you’ll spend more than $2k.
Carbonite limits the number of devices it will back up with each plan. $100/year is their lowest tier plan and none of their tiers offer a legacy plan like we do. Plus, Carbonite’s storage isn’t created or intended for photos. (Most customer service reps and computer industry folks will tell you that the product really isn’t for photos.) Upon your passing, everything stored there will be lost to your descendants.
Maybe you prefer local storage – Your computer, thumb drives, an external hard drive.
No matter how spiffy your computer or how secure your external hard drive is – whether bargain basement or top of the line – devices fail. They fail without warning, at the blink of an eye.
To host large quantities of photos, you’ll need a robust machine. To back them up and feel secure-ish, you’ll need good external storage too.
- Computer / PC / Laptop – minimally, $1000, probably $1500 and up.
- External Hard Drive – conservatively, $100 with replacement every 2-3 years.
- Device crash, data recovery services – starting at around $1000 with no guarantee of recovery.
You’ve hit $2500, easily. You’ll probably spend more for various cloud storage subscriptions that are not permanent.
Let’s go with the ultimate tight budget / DIYer / Thrift Shopper:
- Monthly payment of $2.99 to Apple or Android
- Monthly payment of $19.99 to Google Photos (Remember, after saying it was free, they reneged and now give you enough space for about 3 years’ worth of photos. Beyond that, you’re paying.)
- You could cancel both of these and do a FINITE 24-installment purchase for about $24 / month. Why “rent” when you can save money with full ownership at FOREVER?
Get your FOREVER account started today with 2GBs of free storage. Upgrade to permanent storage when you add anything from 10GBs to a full Terabyte. I’ll help you to assess what you need.
*Some user agreements for the free, included, and subscription-based photo storage options.
First, a few definitions –
- Free = those services like YouTube, Facebook, and Inta; they don’t charge you, but you are data-mined, your ownership is compromised, the files are compressed, and metadata removed, etc.
- Included = Amazon, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Walmart, iCloud and Apple Storage, some levels of Google photos, etc. You are not charged specifically for the storage; however, your storage is tied to another product or purchasing requirement – Amazon Prime, printing photo books and prints, continuing to use their phone, etc. When you stop the activity or purchasing required to have that storage, the storage is gone. Most of these also data mine and compress and do not guarantee your privacy or the viability and security of your files.
- Subscription-based = those services you pay monthly or annually. Carbonite, OneDrive (this is typically included with software subscriptions), and others. The costs typically are not huge for the amount of space they offer but the payments are endless, and if you miss their messages about a failed credit card, expired payment form, changing terms, you are out of luck.
Now, finally – a bit of light reading for you – WHAT did you agree to?
“Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others.”
“We can remove any content or information you share on the Service.”
“WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY … LOSS OR CORRUPTION OF DATA; INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL LOSS; PUNITIVE DAMAGES CAUSED BY … THE REMOVAL OR UNAVAILABILITY OF ANY CONTENT.”
“…we have no liability for any loss, damage, or misappropriation of Your Files under any circumstances or for any consequences related to changes, restrictions, suspensions, or termination of the Services or the Agreement.”
“We may revise these Terms from time to time by posting a revised version. YOUR CONTINUED USE OF ANY OF THE SITES AND APPS AFTER WE POST ANY CHANGES WILL CONSTITUTE YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH CHANGES. IN ADDITION, BY ORDERING PRODUCTS OR USING SERVICES, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ AND REVIEWED THESE TERMS IN THEIR ENTIRETY, YOU AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND THE PRIVACY POLICY AND THESE TERMS CONSTITUTE BINDING AND ENFORCEABLE OBLIGATIONS ON YOU.”
“Snapfish offers free, unlimited storage of online photos to customers who maintain Active Participation. “Active Participation” is defined as purchasing or ordering product through the Services at least once every 365 days. Purchases through Snapfish third-party advertisers do not count towards Active Participation. If you cease Active Participation for any reason, Snapfish reserves the right to terminate your account.”
“Walmart.com Photo accounts are not intended to be used as permanent photo storage. Starting November 2021, if a customer has not made a purchase from Walmart Photo in the last 18 months their photos will be deleted.”
- iCloud & Apple Storage
“If Apple is unable to successfully charge your credit card or payment account for fees due, Apple reserves the right to revoke or restrict access to your stored content, delete your stored content, or terminate your Account.”
“This license doesn’t affect your privacy rights — it’s only about your intellectual property rights.”
“In no event shall Carbonite be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential damages of any kind, including, without limitation, those resulting from loss of use, data, or profits….”
“With OneDrive for Business, every person can easily store, access, and share their work files in their personal online storage space in the cloud. OneDrive for Business storage is provisioned on a per user basis and is designed to serve the needs of individual users.”