Two months after the initial announcement of shutting down Ubuntu One file syn service by Canonical, the Ubuntu One team sent out the second notice, maybe the last notice, to remind all Ubuntu One users to migrate their valuable data from Ubuntu One server to somewhere else by July 31st, 2014, which is the official last day of the Ubuntu One service.
As previously announced, the file services for Ubuntu One have been discontinued. Your data is available for download until the end of July - if you haven't taken action already, you need to do so now in order to ensure you have a copy of all your data. In order to make it easy for you to retrieve all of your content, we have released a new feature that lets you download all your content at once. Our website (https://one.ubuntu.com/) has been updated with instructions on how to conveniently download all your files. In addition, you still can use Mover.io's offer to transfer your data to another cloud provider for free. And the Ubuntu One web interface is available for you to download individual files. The previously announced option of downloading your files as a zip file is producing unreliable results for a small number of users and therefore we have removed that option. If you already retrieved your files as a zip file, we encourage you to check for the validity of the zip file contents. If there are problems with that file, please use one of the options above to retrieve a complete copy of your data. Remember that you will have until 31st July 2014 to collect all of your content. After that date, all remaining content will be deleted. We know you have come to rely on Ubuntu One, and we apologise for the inconvenience this closure may cause. We've always been inspired by the support, feedback and enthusiasm of our users and want to thank you for the support you've shown for Ubuntu One. The Ubuntu One team
The main reason behind the shutdown is simple: the fierce competition in the free storage service. In my humble opinion, the free-to-use model is not a sustainable business model become it relies on referrals to draw free customers and hopes some of these customers will upgrade to the paid service in the future. Instead, a cloud storage company should focus on providing excellent services and features with a reasonable price to attract customers, and then the earned profit can be used to enhance the services and features to benefit the customers. I believe that is why Google and Microsoft don’t have any referral programs, and SugarSync stopped their 5GB free service completely in the beginning of 2014 and transitioned to a paid-only business model.
I think Canonical is making a right decision to drop Ubuntu One, because it can focus on what they are really good at: operating system and related services. It is indeed sad for the current customers that Ubuntu One becomes Ubuntu None, but in the long term, customers will benefit from the decision. Think about it, if Canonical keeps losing money in Ubuntu One, then who is going to pay the developers to release a new version of Ubuntu OS every six months?
