I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

He was unlucky and didn't think things through too much, especially when dealing with such imporant files, but I agree with him that the way it's implemented is silly. If you provide a program that syncs your documents, with the name of your files, to your local system, people expect these files to be your actual documents, not empty links. Every other online storage system works that way. If you move a file out of your skydrive or Dropbox sync folder you have the actual file, not an empty link.

I feel really, really sorry for OP. However, since Google closed my adsense account without any serious reason, I learned not to trust them, so I keep backups of every service I have with them.

I'd recommend anyone who uses Google Docs to download a zip file of their Drive weekly, and if possible, use some of the backup tools like [Insync].

Overall, I agree that the Google Drive interface is not totally clear about what the disk files represent.

[Insync]: https://www.insynchq.com/

Remote volumes are not new. They don't replace backups.

As the author said: "I didn't think anything of it". Nothing to add :)

I think you missed the part when the original document is not a document, but a link/reference. There's no analogue in Dropbox.

While I sympathize with the author (it must have hurt pretty bad if it made him go create an entire website dedicated to "google drive sucks") I thought it was quite obvious that files created on Google Drive with their document editor were not actually copied to your computer with the Google Drive program. It's easy to see when you try to open the file with Notepad or a similar local text editor. Additionally you get a warning when you move a file out of the Drive folder which you should always heed.

Not only that, but if it were the actual file on your local drive and not a link, there wouldn't be an option to "make this file available offline". There were cues which the author missed, but they were obviously not prominent enough which is a (the) design flaw.

Let this be a lesson that you should have multiple backups for anything important. I personally have 2 online backup systems and 3 local ones, the worth of which practice I learned the hard way like this author.

Also think twice before you empty the trash - you're manually making these files unrecoverable from the internet, and if your machine went up in smoke after you hit the button, you'd be screwed. That alone warrants serious consideration.