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Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

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Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#471

Post by hirako2000 »

rjzzleep wrote: post #395
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. is obviously what should have always been the case, but it's good news to hear you've now gotten there. Every single hobbyist website would always choose downtime over a hundred thousand dollar charge.

With a properly configured nginx, you can easily serve 10's of thousands of requests a second on vserver type hardware. Netlify just offers these build pipeline kind of static site with cms UI. But this is a good reminder why my gut feeling always made me avoid these overengineered solutions.

They aren't engineered, they subsidize (more) enginnering effort , and (are meant to) cost less as a result.

They do. But of course maximizing profit is the sole true prerogative of capitalist enterprises. And the market is not totally competitive. So yes your intuition was correct, to be cautious against over enginnered pricing to get y'a.

I mean those companies cater to hobbyist. Then ...

Render seems more fair-play. Until a change of mgt occurs of course.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#472

Post by KingOfCoders »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #209
thinkingemote wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks nice but then so does Netlify at face level! Seems like it is pay as you go, and there is a settable max spend per month. Does their ddos protection work differently than Netlify and could Bunny ever pull the same stunt with billing?

No they don't do Ddos protection AFAIK. I think the main difference to me is Netlify $550/TB [0] BunnyCDN $10/TB [1] You preload your account: "In order to keep your service online, you are required to keep a positive account credit balance. Our system will automatically send multiple warning emails if your account balance drops beyond a certain point. If you fail to recharge your account, the system will automatical…

Just checked, you can also set a limit on monthly bandwidth.

"Monthly Bandwidth Limit (GB) - Limits the allowed bandwidth used in a month. If the limit is reached the zone will be disabled. Set to 0 for unlimited."

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#473

Post by leerob »

rKarpinski wrote: post #21
fbdab103 wrote: post #10

Woof. I was considering kicking the tires on Netlify, but they are officially out of consideration now.

Doesn't make me feel great about Vercel either (which I was looking at)

Vercel has spend management controls, setting limits and SMS alerting: https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-spend-management-realtim...

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#474

Post by herbst »

canyonero wrote: post #469
altin0 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol this deescalated pretty quickly, went from $104K to $20K to $5K to $0 Which basically means you almost scammed the customer for $5K or $20K. Super negative practices. I for one could never trust a company operating in that manner. It would be much more honest to say "unlimited bandwidth" and set a hard-limit for maximum budget, then people know they won't be charged, than to go through all this crap and then pret…

This is very weird take. I'm struggling to understand why this is incident as a reflection of "super negative practices" or is somehow a "scam". The CEO came here and publicly apologized for the mistake and mis-communication, and the issue is resolved for the user with no charges. What am I missing?

What price would the dude have to pay if he didn't publish it? How often does this happen and why is there no protection against charging free customers 100k out of the blue. Why charge it and shock the customer if practice is to waive it? The CEOs response kinda just made the situation worse.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#475

Post by hirako2000 »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #460
Hamuko wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If forgiving bills for this kind of a thing is a standard practice, how come this was the customer support's first reaction: > We normally discount these kinds of attacks to about 20% of the cost, which would make your new bill $20,900. I've currently reduced it to about 5%, which is $5,225. 20% and 5% are quite a bit higher than forgiven.

Given this has been asked here multiple times without response from /u/bobfunk, it’s hard to conclude anything except that he is lying.

Lying but a good talker for sure.

I wouldn't want to be CEO these days. A lot are trained and paid to do damage control.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#477

Post by BigJono »

hasty_pudding wrote: post #465
altin0 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol this deescalated pretty quickly, went from $104K to $20K to $5K to $0 Which basically means you almost scammed the customer for $5K or $20K. Super negative practices. I for one could never trust a company operating in that manner. It would be much more honest to say "unlimited bandwidth" and set a hard-limit for maximum budget, then people know they won't be charged, than to go through all this crap and then pret…

The fact that the CEO had to step in after this blew up online otherwise they were going to try to extort that poor dude for thousands of dollars! Moving my sites off of netlify ASAP.

Tell you what is a good question, why is this thread on page FIVE of HN (ranked #125) with 1000+ upvotes, 400+ comments and only 7 hours old?

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#478

Post by Jgrubb »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #460
Hamuko wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If forgiving bills for this kind of a thing is a standard practice, how come this was the customer support's first reaction: > We normally discount these kinds of attacks to about 20% of the cost, which would make your new bill $20,900. I've currently reduced it to about 5%, which is $5,225. 20% and 5% are quite a bit higher than forgiven.

Given this has been asked here multiple times without response from /u/bobfunk, it’s hard to conclude anything except that he is lying.

Or that usage and billing is a difficult space and this particular thread has been dogpiled by a bunch of folks that have never actually worked in it.

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#479

Post by thinkingemote »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #472
KingOfCoders wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't do Ddos protection AFAIK. I think the main difference to me is Netlify $550/TB [0] BunnyCDN $10/TB [1] You preload your account: "In order to keep your service online, you are required to keep a positive account credit balance. Our system will automatically send multiple warning emails if your account balance drops beyond a certain point. If you fail to recharge your account, the system will automatical…

Just checked, you can also set a limit on monthly bandwidth. "Monthly Bandwidth Limit (GB) - Limits the allowed bandwidth used in a month. If the limit is reached the zone will be disabled. Set to 0 for unlimited."

Thanks!

Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site

#480

Post by brnt »

hnfong wrote: post #415
7moritz7 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a 60 TB in a day peak for a site that previously never crossed the free tier threshhold not qualify as "attack pattern"? This is a static site. To reach that sort of bandwidth out of nowhere you'd need to publish the blueprint for a teleportation machine

To be fair, these days, things can become viral literally overnight. That said, instead of depending on unreliable heuristics, they should just allow an option to change the behavior. The "current policy" to charge small sites on the free tier thousands of dollars instead of just throttling/shutting down the traffic is really predatory.

Anyone exceeding their plan with a factor of 10 or hell, let's make it a 100, almost certainly didn't anticipate it and thus isn't prepared for the kind of bill that apparently comes with it (or even knows that there would be a bill). On top of that, there currently is no way to state such rules up front! Moverover, according to their own explanation, it was almost certainly not organic traffic!

I wager the vast majority of people in the free tier would gladly cap their traffic at the (generous!) bandwidth offered by Netlify. Even to the majority in paid tiers, 100k bills where there previously was none must be unwanted and unintended.

I mean, we all know dark patterns are a thing...

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