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Backblaze IPO

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Re: Backblaze IPO

#191

Post by matheusmoreira »

deanCommie wrote: post #104
matheusmoreira wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They said "yeah, we lose a ton of money on every user like you." Such an interesting statement. It's like they really think they can get away with offering "unlimited" storage without people taking full advantage of it. Like ISPs with their "unlimited" plans, they market that stuff and then they get mad if you actually saturate their link 24/7. I actually emailed backblaze about this years ago. I asked them if they…

> It's like they really think they can get away with offering "unlimited" storage without people taking full advantage of it. I didn't sense that they were bitter about it. But in both cases I do have some sympathy for the business. There is "unlimited" in the sense of what a regular average p50 user would consider reasonable ("every photo i've ever taken with my cellphone of my grandchild") Then there is "unlimited"…

I understand exactly what you're saying. It's perfectly reasonable. However, it's not what companies are selling.

They sell "unlimited". That's what their marketing always promises. Nowhere does it say "unlimited, but only if you're a normal everyday 50th percentile person". They always say it's "unlimited".

So they should absolutely be obligated to keep their promise and deliver unlimited service to even the 99.9999th percentile users. That's what they sold consumers, that's what consumers should get.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#192

Post by HanaShiratori »

vaughan wrote: post #25

I have paid for Backblaze for 4 years, after signing up for two 2 year subscriptions a few years apart. I have never got it to backup my files ever. Their settings dialog integrates with macOS preferences and freezes while it scans for files to backup without giving me any status update. It uploads so damn slowly it’s pretty useless. If I was to move/rename things around it would take weeks more to reupload. Every ti…

I guess from a business perspective you are the ideal costumer. Doesn't know how to use the service, won't contact support, paying long term subscription and is even renewing this long term subscription!

Re: Backblaze IPO

#193

Post by m_st »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #186
ehsankia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused here. How does a threat of deleting your data in less than 7 days and not even canceling your billing makes you a loyal customer? That seems quite awful, miss the email and your data is gone, and you end up paying without them even storing any data.

This is a very Backblaze Personal Backup fan thingie. Some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome? Just like Apple fans. I have rarely met Apple “users” and Backblaze Personal Backup “users”. I’ve mostly met their “fans” - they speak of these companies as if it was the second coming in their lives; as if it brought the light with it - which is very unhealthy imho. I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strateg…

That's their marketing and the fact that it is a rather expensive investment decision that you want to make sure to be right. Same when you buy a Tesla: You get a mail welcoming you to the 'Tesla family'. And given the costs, you sure want this to be the best choice.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#194

Post by usaphp »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #186
ehsankia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused here. How does a threat of deleting your data in less than 7 days and not even canceling your billing makes you a loyal customer? That seems quite awful, miss the email and your data is gone, and you end up paying without them even storing any data.

This is a very Backblaze Personal Backup fan thingie. Some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome? Just like Apple fans. I have rarely met Apple “users” and Backblaze Personal Backup “users”. I’ve mostly met their “fans” - they speak of these companies as if it was the second coming in their lives; as if it brought the light with it - which is very unhealthy imho. I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strateg…

> I have rarely met Apple “users”

You’ve never met people who use iPhone or a Mac? What planet are you from?

Re: Backblaze IPO

#195

Post by thathndude »

rsync wrote: post #38

I find this part interesting - of the ~500,000 customers, 70,000 are B2 customers and 430,000 are "backup" customers ... which are flat-rate "unlimited" users. These flat-rate users are very fickle and price-sensitive. If you peruse subreddits related to cloud storage or online backup, etc., they are filled with very picky users who expect the product to be free - or close to free. It's a fools errand to pursue this…

To your point, the customers sign up for unlimited backup, and then they spend every waking moment trying to find a way to “trick” back blaze into backing up their entire Synology, or the like, on the service.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#196

Post by TrackerFF »

bpodgursky wrote: post #30
henning wrote: post #8

> We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. Fundamentals seem solid, gotta get me some of those shares!

If you're confident, short it. Make some money.

What's that famous quote again...the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent?

Re: Backblaze IPO

#197

Post by ryanlol »

usaphp wrote: post #194
crossroadsguy wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very Backblaze Personal Backup fan thingie. Some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome? Just like Apple fans. I have rarely met Apple “users” and Backblaze Personal Backup “users”. I’ve mostly met their “fans” - they speak of these companies as if it was the second coming in their lives; as if it brought the light with it - which is very unhealthy imho. I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strateg…

> I have rarely met Apple “users” You’ve never met people who use iPhone or a Mac? What planet are you from?

Yeah, I really think that the average person on the street is more of an Apple “user” than a “fan”.

Re: Backblaze IPO

#198

Post by crossroadsguy »

davidandgoliath wrote: post #189
crossroadsguy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use restic -> b2. And also Vorta (which uses borg) -> rsync, borgbase; Tarsnap -> Tarsnap's S3 (I guess). Vorta so far has been really good and has lots of potential. (Badly need a restic GUI here. May drop restic anytime - I am not comfortable having a personal backup setup without a GUI)

rclone is fairly swell, and, comes with a spawnable browser ui.

Is it a backup tool? Or a clone things to some remote tool?

I mean does it have standard differential backup features ie dedup, diff, compress, e2e, snapshot etc?

Re: Backblaze IPO

#199

Post by option_greek »

I was one of their users and compared to their competition, their offering was awful in the places that really mattered: Storing and Restoring of backup data

Let's say you had your old laptop backed up and upgraded your hardware/freshly reinstalled your OS. Now your choices are: 1) Delete your old backup and continue with the new computers backup 2) Keep your old backup and don't backup your newly installed machine

And if you are restoring files, you are forced to download them as zip (which is created asynchronously - so good amount of wait time) -> no automatic restore of files to selected locations.

A lot of these weird constraints seem to be around keeping the egress and storage costs down which is fine but that makes them just another provider not in anyway the best.

Lot of people like them but that's probably only because they haven't actually restored any of their backups. Just mindlessly paying their monthly subscription fees.

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