It’s true. I started calling “the cloud” offsite storage, and the comprehension that dawns in my customers’ eyes is super gratifying. They understand external hard drives, but many couldn’t wrap their heads around this mystical floating in the air storage–because that’s not how it works at all. You’re just using space on someone else’s hard drive.

[Image is a t-shirt which reads:

There is no cloud
It’s just someone else’s computer]

I explain this to eeeevery patron who comes in to ask for tech help etc. I find ways to explain it, because it’s important.

“Oh ‘the cloud’ is just what they decided to call it. What it actually means is that you use the internet to connect to some dedicated computer somewhere where your file is stored, and then you can access that file, which is why it only works with an internet connection. You’re just renting space on a computer the company owns.”

Suddenly everything is less mysterious.