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Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

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Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#211

Post by nZUC2qDyxDA3Kpe »

gcbirzan wrote: post #209
nZUC2qDyxDA3Kpe wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like the plain meaning of that sentence, to me. They are "using content" (downloading it), and it probably "impairs the regular operating behavior ... of [their] infrastructure" (how many 1Gbps servers do you think are sharing a switch? how fast do you think that switch's uplink is? now double the first and half the second because it's Hetzner :P).

If using what they advertise is impacting other customers they shouldn't advertise it

I doubt they have ever advertised that you can saturate your link 24/7 for multiple months.

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#212

Post by blowski »

gfaster wrote: post #163
blowski wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don’t buy from cheap providers! Those who won’t use anywhere near the traffic cap get cheaper prices, you get more certainty from your supplier. Everybody wins.

cheap is not a license to lie. I don't understand why people are defending this, if these companies weren't lying about what they're selling then nobody would be complaining. "1gbps for 250TB" or whatever it is simply the honest way to sell a product.

Is it unethical or illegal?

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#213

Post by woojoo666 »

whatshisface wrote: post #179
arghwhat wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is only fraud if it is intentional deception. In this case I suspect they assumed reasonable interpretation and customer interest: No realistic hosting provider can have the capacity to have every server utilize network 100%, but despite this the customer still benefits from increasing the uplink speed. In my opinion, their limits are perfectly reasonable, the configuration is in the interest of the customer, and…

So what you're saying is, if I offer 10,000 gallons of ice cream for $100, but deliver an ice cream cone, I can defend myself by saying that what I delivered was more in line with what a typical customer would want?

> So what you're saying is, if I offer 10,000 gallons of ice cream for $100, but deliver an ice cream cone, I can defend myself by saying that what I delivered was more in line with what a typical customer would want?

Yes, if that's truly what the typical customer would want. But I doubt a typical customer would want only an ice cream cone after seeing that offer. However, if you offer "unlimited* ice cream", adding in the terms and conditions that it can't exceed 1 gallon per day, and 99.9% of users don't eat over 1 gallon per day, then I think it's fair to serve only 1 gallon per day.

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#214

Post by [deleted] »

toast0 wrote: post #158
googlryas wrote: post #12

Do usage limitations actually affect the bottom line vs throttling? Maybe I'm wrong, but I imagine it doesn't cost much more to run a network that is 80% saturated vs a network that is 5% saturated? Basically, why can't they just fairly throttle high usage users when utilization ramps up, and then unthrottle them when usage lowers? Edit: I'm not talking about them reneging on their guarantees, which they've already d…

Traffic prioritization is expensive, but traffic accounting isn't. It's a lot less work to bill on usage (or cancel accounts for high usage) than to throttle high usage users to keep the network responsive for all users. The operators are likely paying for usage as well on their paid connections, or indirectly in that as connections fill up, they need faster or more ports and that comes at a cost. It's one thing if y…

[deleted]

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#215

Post by mort96 »

krn wrote: post #194
mort96 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with anything? If the user if paying for a service, they should be getting that service. If the operator is offering a service which they can't afford to offer, that's not the user's problem.

A private operator can choose to stop providing any service to any customer at any time. Especially, if it finds it to be economically unsustainable for their business. For instance, OVH has previously terminated accounts of paying customers simply because it didn't want to do any business with people from an occupied territory[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29680251

But what does that have to do with anything? Why can't operators just not lie to their customers?

Just don't call the plan "unlimited". Have well-defined limits. They don't have to be hard limits, they can be a gradual speed reduction after some amount of data per month. Just don't lie. I don't understand why you think this is a difficult concept.

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#216

Post by gcbirzan »

nZUC2qDyxDA3Kpe wrote: post #211
gcbirzan wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If using what they advertise is impacting other customers they shouldn't advertise it

I doubt they have ever advertised that you can saturate your link 24/7 for multiple months.

No, they just advertised unlimited usage on 1Gbps

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#217

Post by mort96 »

woojoo666 wrote: post #200
mort96 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be a bad thing for it to be illegal to lie? Just don't call the plan "unlimited", and have clearly stated limits. Obviously that's not as good marketing. Products usually look better if you lie about them to make them look better. But lying in marketing shouldn't be legal. And this shouldn't be controversial.

It's not "unlimited", its "unlimited*". There are additional constraints that are enumerated afterwards. But for the vast majority of users, it will feel like unlimited, so it's not necessary for them to read those additional constraints

Limited shouldn't be called unlimited. That's just straightforward false advertising. But it sounds like Hertzner doesn't even have the asterisk with additional constraints.

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#218

Post by woojoo666 »

cthalupa wrote: post #185
gernb wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try that at your local fast food place that has free unlimited refills. Drive up a tanker trunk and trying filling it up with unlimited soda.

This is a horrible analogy. At a fast food places they advertise unlimited refills on the cup they sold you as part of the meal. Here you are being advertised unlimited traffic on the port they sold you as part of the server. Trying to liken using the port you are being sold as part of the server to driving up a tanker trunk to a fast food place is silly.

They are both transfer services. You either take your cup and refill at their drink fountain, or use your server to transfer data through their network. Seems like a fine analogy to me

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#219

Post by dale_glass »

mort96 wrote: post #174
krn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would it be a bad thing for it to be illegal to lie? Just don't call the plan "unlimited", and have clearly stated limits. Maybe because the limits are not fixed and completely depend on the spending of the customer? If a customer is among the top 1% of the biggest users and – at the same time – among the top 1% of the smallest spenders, that simply raises the costs of the service for everyone else. There are o…

What does this have to do with anything? If the user if paying for a service, they should be getting that service. If the operator is offering a service which they can't afford to offer, that's not the user's problem.

The argument is that there are no easily determinable limits.

Let's say the provider has a 100 Gpbs upstream, 1000 clients, and offers a cheap plan where you pay for 1 Gbps with no limit. The provider obviously can't provide a sustained 1 Gbps to every client 24/7.

Now, how do you honestly advertise that? Because you can give people 1 Gbps service so long not too many clients do that at the same time. And you can tolerate people downloading 24/7 so long they don't all do it at the same time.

How much you have to crack down will depend on how close to capacity you are, and what your clients are doing.

Re: Hetzner appears to impose unlisted “fair use” on traffic

#220

Post by teraflop »

tshaddox wrote: post #207
whatshisface wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, if I offer 10,000 gallons of ice cream for $100, but deliver an ice cream cone, I can defend myself by saying that what I delivered was more in line with what a typical customer would want?

No, but if you offer an “unlimited ice cream” ticket but then refuse to deliver me 100 solar masses of ice cream, I think that’s okay.

What if I offer "unlimited ice cream, up to 1 cone per day for a month", and then after you pay for a month and ask for an ice cream cone every day for three consecutive weeks, I refuse and say your demands are excessive?

Sure, I might be within my legal rights to drop you as a customer the next month, but isn't it still a scummy and misleading way to advertise my service?

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