Cloud storage is just another person's computer, and they don't care about your data as much as you do.

I feel very strongly about this topic.

I understand not living in the past or whatever, but I haven't been.

I've kept up with technology just fine. Just look at the progression:

Floppy disks (1.44 MB)
CD-R (0.7 GB)
DVD-R (4.7 GB)
BD-R (25 GB)

I currently use BD-R to do my backups and own my data. If someone wants to inform me of a better technology than BD-R, I'm all ears.
But don't say "The Cloud" because that's a whole different thing. It's a service, you don't own it, it relies on the Internet, it costs money every month, etc.
NONE OF THOSE DOWNSIDES apply to standard on-site data storage backup options.

Why not flash drives or hard drives? 

I have OneDrive on both of my computers, and quite frankly, I find it to be an absolute PITA.  Let's just say I'm kind of old school, and would like to know if a file to which I am gaining access is really on my hard drive, or am I pulling something down "out of the cloud"?  Moreover, it will say that my hard drive is almost full when I know better.  If I could educate myself a bit better in how it all works, I could have more confidence, but sometimes I am kind of groping in the dark when it comes to files.

I do make backups every so often to one of several external hard drives, and I keep one in a metal safe, and another (which hasn't been updated in quite some time) in foil within a file cabinet that I use as a kind of Faraday box.  If EMP would ever hit, I don't want to lose thirty years' worth of files, most of all family pictures and videos which can't be replaced.  (I also have an old laptop, circa 2009, best computer I've ever owned, Acer model, in another metal file cabinet.)

Yes, hard drives are part of my on-site storage solution. I have a home fileserver,  using traditional hard drives (magnetic spinning platter, the slow kind) in a RAID configuration.
That is plenty fast for storing files. But here's the thing: when SSD fails, it fails HARD. As in, everything on the whole chip is toast. There is no "hard drive recovery service" for SSD hard drives. It's a HUGE downside of these super fast hard drives.

Contrast that with the traditional magnetic hard drives. About 6 years ago I had an external 1 TB hard drive (magnetic platter of course) and it dropped from a high shelf. Yes, it was damaged. But I only lost a number of files on it. The majority of the files on it were able to be recovered! That would never have happened with an SSD hard drive.

Nevertheless, overall, in the end, I can't live without SSD drives now in my PCs and laptops. The hard drive has been the bottleneck in computer speed for some time. SSDs were a much needed improvement.
Speaking of which, in the interests of frugality, I'd recommend everyone to upgrade their PC (or laptop) to SSD hard drive, and watch how much faster it will be. It will feel like a new machine.

And make sure your machine has AT LEAST 8 GB RAM -- preferably 16 GB. That's another huge bottleneck. I still see cheap laptops with 4 GB RAM and I groan. That is NOT enough for Windows, or even Linux which is much gentler on computer hardware requirements.

We did this with an old (6 year old) laptop, and it made the thing many times faster -- I mean NOTICEABLY faster. Cost us around $55 for the upgrade. An extremely wise move.

Optical storage (BD-R) is good for long-term backups. Optical disks are flood proof, whereas most magnetic hard drives are NOT. 

Yes, hard drives are part of my on-site storage solution. I have a home fileserver,  using traditional hard drives (magnetic spinning platter, the slow kind) in a RAID configuration.
That is plenty fast for storing files. But here's the thing: when SSD fails, it fails HARD. As in, everything on the whole chip is toast. There is no "hard drive recovery service" for SSD hard drives. It's a HUGE downside of these super fast hard drives.…

I have mentioned before that I had 3 hard disk failures within 1 week. Luckily I had a 4th hard disk drive and recovered, losing only about 1 week of (unessential) data. Lesson learned, I made a stack of DVD back-ups.… but my storage needs have expanded (photos and music) far beyond 128GB. After installing my newest 4TB SSD, I backed up using a hard disk. Even using a new fast machine it took a full day to do that backup.

This discussion prompted me to consider getting a current Blueray read/write peripheral not only for back up, but also to play foreign language movies with simultaneous dual language (e.g., English/Asian) subtitles to aid my learning. English only subtitles are of little learning assistance because the native language is often spoken quickly, softly, and/or mumbling, so I often need to read what is being said. Also, the foreign vids commonly use slang and the equivalent English slang doesn't help me learn the native slang.  An example: in one amusing exchange, the English translation, "skinny," was literally "dried shrimp" in the native language.

To adjust for regional video protocols, obtain .srt files for multi-language subtitles, display the subtitles simultaneously, and save files offline… it's all possible with multiple pieces of different software, but a bit of a pain.

I think I have found a work-around for streaming to display the simultaneous subtitles… maybe.

…if you had a micro laser engraver that could print information on scrolls of tough corrosion resistant metal.

Ahhhh… that's the technology that Moses used to transcribe the "Oral Torah" for Chabad to use millennia later.