Originally posted by @Jeff Rabinowitz:
What if your cloud servicer, provider, whatever decides to raise their fees, perhaps double them or triple them or institutes a policy where you must pay for a year in advance? Can't they lock you out of your own data if you refuse to pay? How easy is it to transfer your data to another comparable service? Might they be able to hold your data hostage?
What happens if they just go out of business and decide to fold the platform?
@Jeff Rabinowitz . From the data management standpoint, most companies usually allow you to port data easily out of whatever system you're using. It is usually in a universal common form (CSV, Excel, XML etc.) which makes it easy to port that information to a new service/system.
As for how long data stays on the old system, that's something you would have to find out - each service provider may have its own policies. Some may hold them temporarily some may delete them upon request from their database etc.
