Google Promises Unlimited Storage; Cancels; Tells Journalist Life's Work Deleted • Hacker News Board

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

#521

Post by ajross » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #477

ajross wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He wasn’t threatened harshly. [...] he was told the data would be deleted within seven days How exactly is that not a harsh threat? Sounds like a harsh threat to me. They were nice before, he didn't comply, now they're jerks. But it remains just a threat unless they actually wipe the data. Which they won't, because he's surely downloading it right now while we yell about it on HN.

I was referring to the making it read-only. And there’s no practical way to download that amount of data within seven days, just based on the bandwidth this would require. The situation would be totally different if they gave him six months notice for the deletion.

I think you're misunderstanding the contention upthread and confusing the threat ("we'll delete all your stuff in 7 days") with the actual enforcement of that threat (deleting said data, which hasn't happened, and I'm betting almost certainly won't as the guy will find some way to comply).

The poster upthread was trying (vainly, I guess) to make a distinction between the two.

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

#522

Post by da_chicken » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:37 PM UTC

sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote: post #425

da_chicken wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The advertisers don't pay for google storing my data. The advertisers pay for ads displayed and ads clicked. That's like saying you don't pay the restaurant for the chef, you pay the restaurant for the food. It's a level of semantics that rises to being simply disingenuous. It's a restaurant, not a grocery.

No, it's not semantics, and it shows that you have no clue what you're talking about. You can sell ads without targeting. In fact you can even sell ads without users. Source: I worked years buying and selling online ads.

> You can sell ads without targeting.

You can, but that's not really what Google is selling anymore. It's certainly not the only thing Google is selling.

Unless you're making the claim that the data storage that Google uses for their data tracking isn't paid for by the targeted ad service? That if Google suddenly couldn't use that data for targeted advertising anymore that they'd still keep it around, or that none of their other services would raise in price?

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

#523

Post by seized » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #509

lwhi wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A decent company would drop $2000 on HDD, or a bit less on optical / tape media, and ship (rather than delete) the data to the customer they fired, at their own cost, or at the very least, at customer cost. A company which provides literally no way to get data out and offloads expenses is a POS company. Please, be realistic. This is nuts and you must know it.

Google has an option to have hardware shipped to you that can hold 480TB uncompressed. Not sure if it works with the 'drive' but does with google cloud storage: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/introducing-trans...

The 480TB one is retired, replaced with a 300TB all flash one.

But more importantly these devices are only for uploading to GCP, not exporting data from.

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

#524

Post by freedomben » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

bluesroo wrote: post #487

thinkharderdev wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> raised prices when those competitors folded This part only works if you don't have other large competitors. But this obviously not the case for cloud storage. It is an extremely competitive commodity product. > bad for consumers How exactly is it bad for consumers to get products below cost?

That argument that GP is making isn't that low prices are bad for consumers. The argument is that amortized over the lifetime of the business, the prices are actually significantly higher because they are able to momentarily drive their prices down, eat the losses long enough to run their competition out of business, and then immediately break the low-priced agreements with their customers. Sure, they may be a commod…

Exactly.

It's also bad for consumers because they then have to migrate existing data to some new service (which is far from trivial for most consumers who don't know how to use rclone), and potentially face steep egress fees. Remember we're talking about the industry not just G. G doesn't charge egress fees for Drive, but many cloud storage providers do.

The strategy is "lock-in" and it's a primary part of the "go cheap or free to get customers" part, and it's bad for consumers. I'd much rather pay more in the short-term for cloud storage and not have to migrate later. Thank God for Back Blaze

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

#525

Post by godelski » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

llbeansandrice wrote: post #424

alacode wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious what the context of "grace period" is for Google Drive and found this: https://support.google.com/drive/thread/13321050/what-will-h... "If I cancel my additional storage, will all the files/documents that took up the additional space, be deleted? Or will I still have access to them?" "You will still have access to all your files but, if you have used all storage you won't be able to add or create NEW fi…

The fact that this comment chain is about 7 deep trying to figure out whether the customer was given enough notice or not I think is also evidence that Google has a terrible UX for this anyway. If your data is going to be deleted, it should be painfully obvious well in advance.

I don't think the depth of this comment chain has anything to do with the UX design. The words on that warning are unequivocally interpretable as "the data will not be deleted."

At the end of the day, it doesn't even matter if hidden in the terms of service or somewhere if it is made clear that the data will be deleted. It doesn't even matter if it is clear to @andrewmutz and @garblegarble that the data will be deleted[0]. What matters is if not thinking the data would be deleted is a reasonable interpretation. Full stop. It also matters that when explicit communication (unequivocally interpreted as slated for deletion) that the user was given 7 days, which was not even enough time, especially considering Google's egress rates.

There's a lot of this on HN lately and I'm not sure why. Communication is fuzzy people, I'm not sure why that's surprising. But when there's disagreement don't ask yourself which is right or wrong, but if a reasonable interpretation was made. Because communication is like an autoencoder: there's what's in your head (input), what you say (lossy compressed intermediate latent), and what is received (decompressed information with imputation). There's too many attempts to defend a believed objective reality which just is absurd (ironically making the view less objective).

And, importantly, RTFA

[0] Obviously these two are reading between the lines. It is not a bad interpretation and we often should practice this, especially to be on the safe side, but it's clear that there is inference, so what's wrong with the comments is their strong assertions that the communication was obvious. One may also make the argument that Techdirt isn't telling the full story or timeline, but that's also a different issue and inferential.

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

#526

Post by shwouchk » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

frognumber wrote: post #80

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…

> 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.…

Sorry, but I call FUD here;

Had a very similar experience with google, except with maybe 20tb rather than 200, and no data loss.

They gave warnings at least a year in advance about the transition to google workspace from google for business or however it was called before. It was quite clear that this transition would eventually be mandatory and that it did not include unlimited space for a flat fee.

I punted on the transition for as long as possible, and when it finally arrived I temporarily added some accounts until I removed the excess data (mainly old backups I did not need anymore).

Nothing in life is unlimited and taking such a promise at face value appears to me as being willfully naive. Relying on such an offer as your main storage is begging for trouble. Expecting this to happen is precisely why I only stored backups there.

You don’t need to be an expert to do the math, consider that just to store the data, without any redundancy and without it being constantly spinning would have retailed at at ~ $4K using the cheapest drives (~25 8tb drives), and would have cost them ~$1/h or ~$700 to constantly run at CA electricity prices (~8W idle per drive). And this before redundancy, backups, bandwidth, etc. This is obviously unsustainable and will eventually end.

Same goes eg for dropbox, who offered “unlimited” storage for their business plan until fairly recently but now have the same limit of 5tb/acct as Google.

Who in their right mind would rely on such an obvious abuse of what was meant by “unlimited” to store the only copy of their life’s work?

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

#527

Post by pdonis » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #297

pdonis wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People really need to understand that Google is a garbage company that can't be relied on for anything. Normally the response to this is, yes, it sucks, but you're not paying Google to host your data. However, it looks like this journalist did pay Google to host his data. So this immediately puts it in a worse category.

It's always been a garage argument. If someone is offering free food, and it gives you food poisoning, on purpose, you don't say "well it was free".

> If someone is offering free food, and it gives you food poisoning

That's not a suitable analogy for users of Google's free services. A suitable analogy would be, someone is offering free food, but (a) its quality sucks, and (b) they arbitrarily withdraw it from a significant number of people for no good reason. Yes, that's unpleasant, but "well it was free" is a suitable response in that case.

The issue in this particular case, though, is that the journalist was using paid Google services--which is a very different situation.

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

#528

Post by pdonis » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:47 PM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #384

pdonis wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People really need to understand that Google is a garbage company that can't be relied on for anything. Normally the response to this is, yes, it sucks, but you're not paying Google to host your data. However, it looks like this journalist did pay Google to host his data. So this immediately puts it in a worse category.

> but you're not paying Google to host your data. My organisation (OpenStreetMap) is paying Google to host our emails. They silently delete random ones, they never arrive at inbox. (we are preparing migration to competing provider) Paying does not help.

> Paying does not help.

As I pointed out in the very next sentence of my previous post, yes, in this particular case the journalist was paying.

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

#529

Post by pdonis » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

toastercat wrote: post #366

pdonis wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Google gets value out of free users--that's a huge piece of their business model. And of course if Google had actually kept to their original "don't be evil" model, they wouldn't routinely screw over users the way they do. However, as you note, they have been entrenched for years now, and it has been obvious for that same amount of time that they have long since dropped "don't be evil". So while it certainl…

The average non-tech savvy person doesn't really have an option than to get screwed over then. Assuming you have an Android phone, it's practically required to have a Google account; many apps just flat out do not work without Google Play Services or without signing in with your Gmail account. Yes, I know about microG, Graphene, F-Droid and the like, but the average person is not going to flash their phone. They will…

> Assuming you have an Android phone, it's practically required to have a Google account

To the extent this is true, it's not just Google, it's also the phone manufacturers and service providers (like Verizon).

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

#530

Post by shwouchk » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

llbeansandrice wrote: post #424

alacode wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious what the context of "grace period" is for Google Drive and found this: https://support.google.com/drive/thread/13321050/what-will-h... "If I cancel my additional storage, will all the files/documents that took up the additional space, be deleted? Or will I still have access to them?" "You will still have access to all your files but, if you have used all storage you won't be able to add or create NEW fi…

The fact that this comment chain is about 7 deep trying to figure out whether the customer was given enough notice or not I think is also evidence that Google has a terrible UX for this anyway. If your data is going to be deleted, it should be painfully obvious well in advance.

I respectfully disagree. They were clearly given enough notice - from personal experience as I’ve commented already, as well as from sibling comments.

If you are still “figuring this out”, I daresay it is simply because you haven’t used the paid service and seen the frequent nagging emails about the transition.