Well one idea I had that changes the operational posture somewhat is to have the “reader” UX be a static page served completely from S3 and referencing other static S3 resources (the encrypted blob), then have the dead man’s switch “fail open” if the “user is not dead yet” signal goes offline. That way the company could almost run out of money and cease active operations but still have the data be readable by end users (with the keys, of course) for a long time. Having such a fallback plan in place gives confidence.

The other thing is being very transparent about the real world incremental cost of a user’s data. It slightly undermines the price point, but being able to say “look, incremental storage cost for your data over your lifetime is 33 cents. We have a bond that covers our current user base in perpetuity ten times over” is pretty compelling. You can say “yes, you’re paying way more than the incremental cost, but you’re paying for the care that went into making sure it’s got longevity.”

I can’t stress enough how happy I am for you that you built this thing that I consider a fabulous idea. I have an idea about how you can market it if you want to hear it. Let me know the best way to email you.