If files weren't completely deleted when the trash was emptied, then people would be kvetching about the horrible security implications and the only way to be sure was to keep files on the local disk so that when you emptied the trash, the files would be really gone....
This is surely true. It's also true that real world data loss is worse than nonsense internet flaming. I think the arguments can be dumb too, but the guy actually lost files here. And it's the kind of mistake I could see myself making pretty easily. In other contexts you protect against this with non-local backups (ironically, that's probably 90% of my usage of Drive), but there's no equivalent in the cloud world. It…
And And those who lost their file will blame the UI. I understand the frustration and how terrible the poster feels but this anecdotal argument is irrelevant to the actual safety or UI quality of Google Drive.
There will always be users who lose their data due to glitches, technical illiteracy, bad design etc. There are literally dozens, maybe hundreds of million Google Drive users.
The lesson that can be learned here is this: Your personal data management system should never have a single point of failure.
Disclaimer: I was a Googler sometime ago but wasn't anywhere near the Drive team.