Cloud Capitalist

What Does Cloud Capitalist Mean?

A cloud capitalist is a company that has a business model delivering a product or service that is based entirely in a virtual environment accessed through the internet, or is moving toward that model with its existing business. The products and services offered by cloud capitalists are a break from traditional models in that they are not meant to be downloaded or installed to a computer or wireless device.

Instead, the user pays for access to the virtual environment where the product or service can be used. Alternatively, access to the virtual environment may be free, but the product or service is pay per use.

Techopedia Explains Cloud Capitalist

Cloud capitalists are the pioneers of platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) models, along with alternative cloud storage models for music and video. By requiring a subscription rather than a one-time purchase price, software makers get out of the constant grind of having to find extra features to make the upgrade attractive to consumers who have a serviceable older version on their machine. Consumers can also benefit from the cloud model in that they don’t need to upgrade their hardware or pay out a large upfront cost to use the latest versions of software.

Cloud capitalists in media (music, video, e-books) do not have a unified approach yet. There is a split between unlimited consumption models, where the user can access a vast library for a monthly fee, and a pay per use model, where a file lives temporarily on a device like a rental item.

Cloud capitalists believe that, with the complexity of the technology growing rapidly, it makes sense to host these services on hardware that can best handle them rather than continuing the expensive cycles of upgrading that typically take place when software needs to outpace hardware capabilities. With the ground that cloud-based solutions are gaining, it is a hard point to argue.