Are "Lifetime" Cloud Storage Plans scams?

Wouldn't say scam but potentially unsustainable. Some years ago I signed up for a brand new startup Nextcloud service which was priced far too low & went under very quickly. Switched to a hosted Nextcloud provider who had been around a long time (still around). They were really good but after a short time I decided to learn how to host it myself.

Hardware wise you don't need much, I upgraded to a used Pi5 8GB with fanless heatsink case & added an m.2 SSD. Only 1 user on my instance but I often share folders with others, it's robust & never once crashed.

If exposing to www you need to keep your network secure. There's a learning curve but self hosting can be rewarding. Any if you're lucky you might get to spend hours & hours problem solving when something breaks 😉😁