This answer is a summarized and harmonized description related to this forum thread. We will be updating the answer in line with users’ feedback so that it contains a consistent set of information.
End of June we will set S2 L1C bucket as “Requester pays” similarly as it is for S2 L2A and S1 GRD. This move is required to allow further increase of the shared data - for continuation of Sentinel-2 L1C coverage, to accommodate global rollout of Sentinel-2 L2A and to host European and then global Sentinel-2 analysis ready mosaics.
How might this affect your workflow:
Note that whichever category you fall into above, you will need to make changes to your code to continue to access Sentinel-2 data on AWS. In most cases, it’s as simple as adding a flag to your object request.
As there are several web applications out there making use of Sentinel meta-data, we have decided to make some of these data available over HTTP permanently:
L1C and L2A tiles
L1C and L2A products
In case you believe we should make some other meta-data available in a similar manner, describe the need in the thread bellow.
We understand that this change might be an inconvenience to some users. However, the goal of this experiment is to discover how best to stage data for analysis and processing in the cloud. When the Sentinel Public Data Collection was established two years ago, getting hold of Sentinel imagery was quite a challenge. It was distributed in unwieldy chunks and Copernicus SciHub had trouble managing the demand. And there was no other place to get it. At that time, we made a decision to make the data available as easily as possible and as openly as possible. Things are changing now, with the collaborative ground segment running, four DIAS-es coming in a few months, and data generally being more easily accessible. So we believe the time is now right to go back to original purpose – experimenting with how best to stage data for analysis in the cloud.