Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google new motto - Speak to the Wall™
Isn't that motto registered by Facebook?
No, that's - FACEBOOK IS WATCHING YOU™
A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
281–290 of 516 posts
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#282Reminds 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…
I learnt this lesson the hard way. Solution: get a separate debit (not credit!) card for all cloud stuff. Make sure you only transfer enough money on to it each month to cover what you reasonably expect your bills to be (and that you can quickly top it up in hours if you legitimately need to). Worst case, if AWS or Google decide to fuck you over, let the bill bounce. This way you've still got funds on hand to deal wi…
My preferred VPS provider (and DNS provider) both accept wire transfers, no card required.
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#283Reminds 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…
I learnt this lesson the hard way. Solution: get a separate debit (not credit!) card for all cloud stuff. Make sure you only transfer enough money on to it each month to cover what you reasonably expect your bills to be (and that you can quickly top it up in hours if you legitimately need to). Worst case, if AWS or Google decide to fuck you over, let the bill bounce. This way you've still got funds on hand to deal wi…
For Google Cloud can't you set a billing limit for it to not exceed? That's what I have done but I have not come close to exceeeding it yet so IDK if there is something I am missing.
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#284This seems like a pretty big stink to be dropping on the first day of Google I/O, with it's spotlight on (among other things) Firebase.
I hope this article forces their hand.
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This works well in India, with 2-factor auth — Indian companies can't charge my debit or credit card just because they have the card number, expiry and CVV. I have to approve each transaction with my bank. I'm wary of giving my card information to companies outside India because I don't have this protection.
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Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#286Reminds 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 custome…
So naive. That's not how you get support in this day and age. You get support by kicking up a storm on social media.
Shout far and wide (twitter, facebook, reddit, etc) that [Big corporation] is screwing you. If you can give it some sort of spin - like racism or gender equality - all the better. Just kick up as much of a storm as you can.
I guarantee that [Big corporation] will be forced to respond.
(I say this semi-jokingly, but it is sad that this a) works, and b) that sometimes it is the only way to get their attention)
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#287They said the issue was due to TLS tickets and not setting keep alive values. TLS tickets are await of resuming a TLS session without having to renegotiate it, considering that you are only polling for a boolean, that negotiation overhead could be much greater then the actual being passed. This isn't something specific to firebase so that's why no library would mention it. Keep alive is a flag that allows you to reus…
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Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#288The author talks about using their own infrastructure and open source alternatives but that's a revisionist fantasy. They would have never gotten off the ground as a start up by buying a bunch of servers and spending time spinning up infrastructure. Not to mention they would have been paying the full costs of their bandwidth from the start. The real lesson to learn here is to never hit a paid service going through a…
> The author talks about using their own infrastructure and open source alternatives but that's a revisionist fantasy. They would have never gotten off the ground as a start up by buying a bunch of servers and spending time spinning up infrastructure.
"We went from a Skype group of 10 beta testers to hundreds of active users, then thousands in only a few short months."
Getting off the ground required supporting thousands of users. That doesn't require buying a bunch of servers. Rent one basic physical machine from Hetzner or whoever, spend an afternoon setting up PostgreSQL, and you're done. Reactionary, perhaps, but hardly revisionist.
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Would you recommend against using GAE? I've been burned so hard by them, I'd recommend against using anything Google.
It's getting to that point for me too now. I'm really really close to removing them from every aspect of my life. Professional and private.
I did that. It took me two years to move everything over (email took the longest time), but it's been totally worth it. I still have my @gmail address, but it's only there to forward email to my real address, and I never log in or send email. Besides junk mail and spam, I am now at a point where I get maybe 1-2 real emails on my @gmail account, and then I tell the sender to use my new address.
My google usage is now
1. Occasionally watching Youtube videos in an incognito window
2. Very rarely using !g to search Google via DDG
3. Using Gmaps in an incognito window a couple times a month
and that's it. I don't find that I miss it at all. If I had to stop using Youtube and Gmaps, I won't miss 'em.
Re: A startup’s Firebase bill suddenly increased from $25 to $1750 per month
#290> 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.
Usually getting to the front page of Hacker News is the only way to get support from Google. Hope it works this time.