I have used Storj for awhile and helped debug and ultimately solve the small file issue with speed. I really only signed up in an attempt to help support Ix, as I think (and hope) they get some sort of kick back. I back up ~2.5TB compressed and pay backblaze ~$8 a month and WAS paying Storj about $7 a month. This new pricing structure is a way to say “We don’t want your crappy little business”. I can use ANY other cloud provider and pay way much less to store 2TB of data out there. I hope (and pray) Ix allows us to us “truecloud” *(now even more expensive) aka restic to other providers work Storj effectively dropping home gamers on their head. My price went from $84 to $600 a year, that is nuts, that is the sort of thing Broadcom did when they bought VMWare. Clear their business model was quite broken and we are now going to have to pay for it one way ($600 a year) or another (no ability to backup using restic to other providers).
It is their business and their decision, but I think they will not survive this.