Zip export vs living in someone else’s cloud

Cloud logs are slick until the subscription lapses, the intern deletes a project, or you need a package a year later and the API mood changed. A zip is rude, chunky, and gloriously portable—it is yours in a folder like it is 2009 and that is sometimes exactly what legal likes.

Cloud shines for collaboration

Real-time comments, simultaneous viewers, permissions—that is not zip’s game. Zip is a handoff artifact: “here is the bundle, do what you want with it.”

Zip shines for ownership

Email to yourself, drop on NAS, AirDrop to the owner. No account recovery drama. The tradeoff is you must mean it when you export—nothing magic syncs unless you build that habit.