Ridgeback — managed models and storage

The option a household gets by doing nothing. We answer its questions on our own model and keep its files in our own bucket, which removes every setup step and takes on every obligation that came with them. This board specifies what the household is told, what it is charged for, and what it gives up. The rates are the one part nobody has decided yet, so they are drawn as unresolved rather than guessed. Change the structure in the cost panel and the meter, the ceiling and Bobby's answer all recompute.

Managed v0.1 · mobile

2026-09-10
neutral handset · 390 × 844
high fidelity
Maintained by Not Hotdog LLC

Settings

Where your data goes

UsageWhatever the model we run does for you. Ridgeback
Photos and filesKept in the bucket we run. Ridgeback
Nothing configured

No endpoint, no key, no capacity to plan. This is the state of a household that has never opened these settings, and it is a working state — questions are answered and files are kept from the first day.

Backup is on.no action was required to turn it on

01Where the household starts

Settings · Where your data goes

What we run for you

The model
Answers come fromThe default Ridgeback model. Ours
It can changeWe upgrade it and tell you in the thread. Notified
The bucket
Encrypted at restKeys held by us, rotated on our schedule. Yes
Deleted filesRecoverable for 30 days, then gone. 30 days

Safe mode still withholds what it withholds. Running the model ourselves does not widen who may ask.see the safe mode board

02What managed means

Settings · Usage

This month

Usage41% A share of what this household is allowed each month.
Photos and files kept68 of 250 GB Measured once a day and averaged across the month.
What it costs
HouseholdCharged every month regardless of use. TBD
Usage past 100%Charged in proportion, added to the same bill. TBD
Storage past 250 GBPer GB for the month. TBD

An allowance is included; anything past it is added to the same bill.structure: included + overage

03The meter

Board control · household size

Usage figures are an example household, not measured data. The rates beside them are genuinely undecided and are drawn that way.

Household · Bobby

Are we going to run out?

Are we going to run out this month?

Bobby

You are at 41% of this month’s allowance, and 68 of 250 GB.

At this rate nothing runs out before the month does.

Bobby reads the same meter the settings screen does, so the two can never disagree.one source, two surfaces

04Bobby at the ceiling

Switch the household to Large and this answer changes, because that household is past its allowance for the month.

Settings · Usage

Change how this works

Stay managed
Move to a larger householdMore included, same bucket, same model. TBD

Nothing moves. The files stay where they are and the change takes effect on the next bill.

Leave managed
Bring your own bucketYour storage, your terms, your bill. Set up
Bring your own modelQuestions go to the provider you name. Set up

Switching the model takes effect on the next question. Switching the bucket does not move what is already in ours — that is a copy, and it is the slow part.68 GB to move

Open bring your own

05The two doors out

Cost structure · rates undecided

What gets metered, and what it is measured in

The shape below is specified. The rates are not, and nothing here guesses at them — every unresolved number is drawn as an open token so it stays visible until somebody decides it. Three structures are on the table. Each one settles a different set of questions and leaves a different set open, and each one changes what the meter screen and Bobby have to say.

Candidate structure
Included column shown for a standard household of three to five people.
Metered Unit How it is counted Included Rate
Household per month Charged whether or not anyone asks anything or keeps anything. — TBD
Usage share of a month A share of the work the model does for this household, so a heavy question weighs more than a light one. 100% / month TBD
Photos and files kept per GB-month Sampled once a day and averaged, so a file added on the 28th costs a tenth of one added on the 1st. 250 GB TBD
Restores out per GB Counted on the way out of the household, including a move to a bucket the household brings. unmetered not billed

What this structure settles

  • The bill is predictable until it isn't. A household knows its floor and only sees a surprise once it crosses a line it was shown in advance.
  • Heavy households pay for being heavy, so one household cannot quietly fund another.
  • The meter has a job. The usage screen is worth building because the allowance is worth watching.

What it leaves open

  • What happens at 100%. Refuse the next question, slow it down, or bill through silently. Nobody has picked one, and Bobby cannot answer step four until somebody does.
  • One bill or two. Whether question overage and storage overage are separate lines or a single number the household cannot decompose.
  • Whether the allowance resets or rolls. A month that goes unused either vanishes or banks, and households will assume it banks.
The trade

What managed buys, and what it costs

Models and storage are one setting pair in the interface and two different arguments underneath, so they are weighed separately here. Each side closes with the position the bring-your-own board takes, because a household that reads only one of these two documents is being sold to rather than informed.

Managed models

We answer the household's questions on infrastructure we run.

What it buys

  • It works on the first day. No endpoint, no key, no capacity to plan, and no household stuck halfway through a setup it does not understand.
  • Outages are ours to fix and ours to explain. The household has one number to call, and it is not a provider it has never heard of.
  • Upgrades happen without a household action, so nobody is running a two-year-old model because they never got round to it.
  • One bill. No separate provider relationship, no second card on file, no second thing to cancel.

What it costs

  • The questions leave. Household material reaches infrastructure the household does not control and cannot inspect.
  • The model changes under them. An answer that worked last month can come back different, with no action on their side to explain it.
  • Cost tracks use, and household use is spiky. One curious teenager is a bill nobody forecast.
  • No recourse on refusals. If our model declines something the household legitimately needs, their only move is to leave.
Bring your own says

Questions never fall back to us silently. A household that moved them to a provider it chose did so to stop them going anywhere else, and a quiet fallback would defeat exactly that.

Managed storage

We keep the household's photos and files in a bucket we run.

What it buys

  • Backup is on before anyone configures it, which is the failure mode that actually costs people their photographs.
  • Redundancy, encryption at rest and lifecycle rules are our job, not a household's weekend project.
  • A restore is supported. Somebody answers when it goes wrong, rather than the household reading a provider's console alone.
  • Nothing to over-buy. The household does not guess at capacity a year ahead and pay for the guess.

What it costs

  • The photographs sit on our terms. Retention, deletion windows and key rotation are ours to set and ours to change.
  • Leaving means moving the data, and the data is the heavy part. The exit is real but it is slow, and it gets slower every month they stay.
  • It compounds. A household that never deletes anything pays for that decision forever, and households never delete anything.
  • Quota becomes a product decision. Running out is something we chose, not something a disk did, and it will be read that way.
Bring your own says

Storage falls back to our bucket without mentioning it, because working out where an object lives must never fail and never raise. This is the one place the two settings deliberately behave differently.