Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 516 posts

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#131

Post by jakub_g »

> It was extremely hard to write this article for fear of being looked down upon for our mistakes. I can only hope that some of you may learn from our embarrassing mistakes and implement solutions to the growing problem of service trap.

Kudos for writing it down. This kind of cautionary articles are very valuable and much needed.

Moreover, getting to front page of HN is one of the very few ways to have your case resolved by some googler accidentally passing by - hopefully someone will help the guys.

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#132

Post by jazoom »

dutchbrit wrote: post #85

Is there any open source product that offers everything that firebase does?

From the article:

>Always heavily consider open source alternatives (something which didn’t exist for Firebase at the time… but now alternatives like Horizon and Backendless exist, for example.

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#133

Post by StavrosK »

mstade wrote: post #92
dkersten wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I thought I'd miss GMail, but I really didn't. I used Google Inbox for a while too and thought I'd miss that, but now I use Spark as my mail client so I don't even miss that either. It was more of a mental "but but my decade-long history of gmail" thing, but it turned out that really was less of a big deal than I thought. I now have a nice custom domain and I forward my gmail to my fastmail, updating subscripti…

This. I too dreaded the switch because of all the history, but the migration to fastmail was quick and painless, and I lost nothing. (Arguably, losing everything would've been better, so much useless noise in my history.) Looking back on it now, about a year after migrating, my only regret is I didn't do it sooner.

Exactly the same experience for me. It's so much faster, more convenient and useful, and the migration tool was a breeze to use, I should have done it years ago.

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#135

Post by geggam »

bradynapier wrote: post #20

I authored the post and yes you are correct about the AWS Lambda being another service. I have since modified it based on a users suggestion to reflect. I guess the point was that by adding the middleman between it there was more control --- We are self-funded and small group of people. We can't afford to hire a bunch of people to know about containers and servers and every little detail. Thanks for your comments! Di…

Investigate SRV records for load balancers as well.

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#136

Post by _asummers »

corford wrote: post #126
mstade wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, let the providers take the risk. Typically, the providers will let it bounce a few times before cutting things off as well. This might just give you another week or two to sort things out, without having to lay out possibly significant funds that you may or may not be able to reclaim. I only wish setting up virtual cards were as easy as setting up a new mail box. I know there are services out there that lets…

To be honest, the best way is setting up a completely isolated account with card. If you're extra paranoid, use a different bank for this account.

To be honest, this all sounds like it should be a primary bank feature. I should be able to cap a recurring payment at $X for a specific vendor otherwise have it go through automatically.

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#137

Post by ceejayoz »

staticelf wrote: post #2

I think Firebase was kind of douchebags assuming the story is correct, if you change how people are billed you should give people time to adjust their software. Stuff like that makes me want to host everything myself as it will for sure be the cheapest option.

Yeah, ideally they'd have simulated the change for a while, and given folks a few months of "your bill soon will be $xxx" emails.

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#138

Post by corford »

douche wrote: post #122
daemin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the bank can just automatically give you an overdraft for that amount, add some fees because you accessed that facility, and require you to pay the full amount. After all, they're just being helpful in managing your money and paying your suppliers.

This is why no reasonable person should use debit cards for recurring payments. I'd advise not using debit cards for anything, under any circumstances, and relying on the better protections that credit cards provide, but it's a losing battle. My debit card is ATM-only.

You're right and the trick is setting up a separate account for the debit card (ideally with a different bank).

This is generally a good approach for all sorts of reasons, not just protection from over enthusiastic cloud bills.

Keep most of your funds in one bank (and never use the cards). Transfer from this account to one or more other accounts with other banks and use the cards on these secondary accounts to pay for things. This way you're protected from suppliers over billing and banks going crazy with unarranged overdrafts (which aren't secured so absolute worst case you just tell them to fuck off and default on it).

Basically, the trick is holding on to your cash. Much harder to fix things rapidly if you're having to negotiate with a third party between you and the supplier (which is the case with a credit card company).

Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month

#140

Post by snomad »

flipp3r wrote: post #14

Reminds me of getting Bait-and-Switch'd by Google App Engine in 2011. From 10's of euros to 1000's. > They have no phone number to contact, no way to dispute this other than email — which they have ignored us for over a month now without replying to our continued requests. Trapped. Doomed. We have no further options. Sounds like Google did a great job with Firebase. Definitely gives you that Google-feel of unresponsi…

> They have no phone number to contact, no way to dispute this other than email — which they have ignored us for over a month now without replying to our continued requests. Trapped. Doomed. We have no further options.

I don't understand why the larger internet/tech community keeps giving Google a pass on this. Anything where money comes in or out should ultimately have a support line where ultimately a human customer service agent can respond.

Post reply on HN