Anybody still think it's a good idea to keep their data files in the cloud?
Yes, I still think that. Like you and everyone else who doesn't live in a cave, my Social Security, banking, credit, real estate, medical, tax, and virtually every other official record concerning me, are all on Internet-connected servers—the so-called "Cloud." There is nothing we can do about that. It works pretty well, mostly, though the Chinese Ministry of State Security is in possession of the records of my 32-year career in government after breaching the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) servers a few years ago. Any suggestions on what I can do about that?
As for personal files (I don't mean private information like financial records), yes, I still think it's a good idea to keep some of them on remote storage. But not the only copy; I have encrypted disks for sensitive stuff, ordinary disk storage for non-sensitive stuff.
I reiterate that image.canon is not a data backup service. It's a temporary storage location for photos and videos. I am using it with my new R5, and, while it has some rough edges, it seems to work pretty well. Photos uploaded from my camera got to Lightroom Classic on my Mac, and are automatically backed up to two external drives.
Canon's problem with image.canon was unfortunate, but I have to believe that nobody lost their photos. Surely they were uploaded to a computer from the camera card(s) and backed up. It has always been the case that people who trust their data to a single failure point are at risk of losing their data. Canon does not have a great record with consumer software, and as we have now learned in the current ransomware attack, doesn't seem to be doing very well in maintaining its own data, either. Like any careless person or business, they had to learn the hard way.
