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Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

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Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#171

Post by voakbasda »

cochne wrote: post #141
boringg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crisis (!?) is a bit dramatic. Google response isn't correct but everyone here has there hands a bit dirty. Storing 237 Tb on an unlimited server - the individual clearly knew they were taking advantage of a system and probably should have been ready for some kind of remedy.

I hardly think it's fair to say that they were 'taking advantage'. If Google says unlimited, should the typical person really expect that to be taken away? That's a really bad look for Google. "If we offer something that's good value to you, expect it to be taken away suddenly in the future." Those are not the actions of a company I would want to rely on.

With modern connected devices, I absolutely do expect for features (or even total functionality) to be removed on a whim by the manufacturer. Cloud services are no different.

Lesson being: do not rely on devices or services that rely on a third party. They absolutely will screw you; it’s only a matter of time.

If you do not believe this, then I would say that you have not been around this industry long enough. There may be rare exceptions, but this should be your rule if you care about the longevity of your software and data.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#172

Post by mmstan »

boringg wrote: post #117
frognumber wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The actual headline is slightly less inflammatory: "Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data" Correct. 7 days is not enough time to stream >200TB of data, let alone find a place to stream it to. This puts a human being in a crisis position. He doesn't need to just find someone willing to store his data.…

Crisis (!?) is a bit dramatic. Google response isn't correct but everyone here has there hands a bit dirty. Storing 237 Tb on an unlimited server - the individual clearly knew they were taking advantage of a system and probably should have been ready for some kind of remedy.

From the article:

"Burke said he paid Google “a lot of money for a long time” for an “unlimited” cloud storage account."

I don't see how can this be seen as "taking advantage of a system".

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#173

Post by toomuchtodo »

andrewmutz wrote: post #51

The actual headline is slightly less inflammatory: "Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data" The facts of the article are even less inflammatory. The journalist uploaded 237.22 TB of video to his google drive when the "unlimited" plan existed. When google phased out the unlimited plan, he's not paying fo…

S3 is not where this belongs. Backblaze B2 would be better and cheaper (~$1428/month) and no egress fees due to Cloudflare bandwidth alliance, the Internet Archive also has a private offering [3].

If the journalist in question sees this, or someone knows them, I am happy to assist in a migration at no cost. If someone from Google sees this (HN Google support), it would be swell if the delete lifecycle could be paused while this migration is facilitated.

[1] https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing

[2] https://www.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-alliance/

[3] https://webservices.archive.org/pages/vault

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#174

Post by jsnell »

Nicksil wrote: post #143
jsnell wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, they did not pay for an "unlimited storage forever" service. They paid for an "unlimited storage this month for $X" service. Eventually Google stopped offering that deal, and he continued storing his data as if the payments for data storage in the past would entitle him to store the data indefinitely into the future as well.

>as if the payments for data storage in the past would entitle him to store the data indefinitely into the future as well. Why do you think he thought this?

Because he stopped paying for the service of unlimited storage for this month (as that service was no longer offered), didn't migrate the data to somebody offering a better deal, and expected for it to be retained indefinitely?

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#175

Post by avazhi »

boringg wrote: post #137
Nicksil wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the individual clearly knew they were taking advantage of a system Why do you think this?

[flagged]

Highly recommend reading the article again, slowly, until you fully understand the situation.

This was a paid service until Google changed the terms; afterwards, Google claimed that the files would merely be read only (indefinitely), not deleted. After THAT, they then gave the user 1 week to deal with 250 terabytes.

Read it again you understand that properly.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#176

Post by dcow »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #73
winter_blue wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it seems when I do, I get super heavy traffic Do you mean you get more traffic when Google Ads are active/present on your website? I.e. that the google search ranking algorithm prioritizes websites running Google ads?

No, the opposite. When they're inactive, traffic reaches all time highs. When they're active, traffic is still decent, but nowhere near as high when they're off. Google ranks your site based on speed (as well as a few other factors), and their product (adsense) slows everything down, so that's potentially a reason. So, it's like... wow, I should have kept adsense on (although I probably wouldn't have the same traffic…

The Google Catch-22

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#178

Post by [deleted] »

andrewmutz wrote: post #51

The actual headline is slightly less inflammatory: "Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data" The facts of the article are even less inflammatory. The journalist uploaded 237.22 TB of video to his google drive when the "unlimited" plan existed. When google phased out the unlimited plan, he's not paying fo…

[deleted]

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#179

Post by boringg »

mmstan wrote: post #172
boringg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crisis (!?) is a bit dramatic. Google response isn't correct but everyone here has there hands a bit dirty. Storing 237 Tb on an unlimited server - the individual clearly knew they were taking advantage of a system and probably should have been ready for some kind of remedy.

From the article: "Burke said he paid Google “a lot of money for a long time” for an “unlimited” cloud storage account." I don't see how can this be seen as "taking advantage of a system".

"Burke said he paid Google “a lot of money for a long time” for an “unlimited” cloud storage account."

Thats highly subjective to the point of meaningless.

Re: Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted

#180

Post by Uehreka »

gaoshan wrote: post #99
andrewmutz wrote: post #51

The actual headline is slightly less inflammatory: "Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data" The facts of the article are even less inflammatory. The journalist uploaded 237.22 TB of video to his google drive when the "unlimited" plan existed. When google phased out the unlimited plan, he's not paying fo…

My previous comment was not as informed as it should have been (because I opined after only read the title... a mistake, to be sure). I've edited it and will leave it at this being a very unfortunate situation to be in.

> He can buy his own drives, with redundancy, for less than 2 months of that.

He did do that. The FBI raided his house and took all the drives. In the middle of trying to get them back (it’s unclear if he’ll be able to), Google terminated his storage. If this had happened at a different time he could’ve just backed up to a different (likely more expensive) service. But that’s not an option that’s open at the moment or possibly ever.

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