The San Francisco Chronicle posted an article about a new nonprofit whose mission will be to "permanently" save everyone who subscribes digital information.
Chronicle of Life claims to overcome this problem by working as a nonprofit. While companies can change their business models at will if they're not making money, Chronicle of Life by law must commit all the money it raises to its promised mission, Pommerenke says.
Yet even a nonprofit must raise enough money to keep operating. Chronicle of Life charges one dollar per megabyte of data stored, about the size of an average digital photo. That's a huge markup over the cost of today's hard drives or flash drives.
Chronicle of Life's pricing serves as a reminder that Pommerenke intends the service as storage for a selection of a person's most important files, not an all-purpose backup. Three-quarters of all payments received go into an endowment that sticks to conservative investments to make the service self-sustaining.
The fledgling service needs 1,250 users on top of the money already raised to make Chronicle of Life financially viable, Pommerenke says. Most of the money spent to run the service pays for the labor needed to monitor and manage the data.
Ok, so the business idea makes sense (assuming this is indeed a goal of everyone) but I'm seriously not getting how Chronicle of Life should be a nonprofit. Why is there no incentive for a for-profit to do this? When anyone figures this out, let me know.