That is very concerning, I guess I am moving my site from Netlify urgently.
Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
501–510 of 836 posts
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that's not what's happening: they aren't keeping a full host for you. Your argument is like saying that a bus traveler costs the gas needed to power the bus, but it's never the case: the bus would be cruising no matter what. And symmetrically the VM host would be up no matter what you did with your instance.
I'm not sure that's true. Shutting down unneeded hardware seems like a very simple but major optimization.
You assume that the hardware would be unneeded, but that's a very strong assumption.
It would be very bad for any cloud provider to leave hosts with only one VM running on it, and you can be pretty sure only very small minority of their park that end up in that situation where shutting down a single VM would lead to a shut-down of the entire host, because it means that the host was vastly under-used in the first place.
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#503There's no way in hell anyone should ever under any circumstance use a free service that might, for reasons entirely outside your control, suddenly bill you 5k, or 104k... or any non trivial amount really. Just suspend service on excessive overages...
Use a virtual card with just a small amount of money on it to limit your liability. Won't work if you've entered a contract, but for a lot of these providers, including AWS it works.
This "one crazy trick" does nothing to limit your true liability.
If you go to a restaurant someone at your table orders 5,000 plates of mozzarella sticks, the fact that your credit card only covers $5 doesn't mean you are magically absolved from the rest of the bill.
For $100k, a debt collection firm would be more than happy to get a judgement against you. Credit card or no.
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only a weird take if you don't have any common sense. It's super simple: either offer unlimited bandwidth(since you're not charging these anyways), like Cloudflare Pages does, or put in place controls that will allow customer to set a top limit for their budget. You can't just all of a sudden send them a $104K bill and expect them to pay when the've never spent more than a few bucks. And then even worse, you can…
"Pay for what you use" is an arbitrary billing rule? Come on now. OP was ignorant, and got tossed a lifeline. Also “just make everything zero dollars bro” is a ridiculous proposition.
the CEO said they're "forgiving any bills from legitimate mistakes" which effectively means "just make everything zero dollars bro".
And no, he didn't use all that bandwidth, he was victim of a DDoS which the hosting provider should have measures in place to prevent or limit the service if it happens.
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only a weird take if you don't have any common sense. It's super simple: either offer unlimited bandwidth(since you're not charging these anyways), like Cloudflare Pages does, or put in place controls that will allow customer to set a top limit for their budget. You can't just all of a sudden send them a $104K bill and expect them to pay when the've never spent more than a few bucks. And then even worse, you can…
"Pay for what you use" is an arbitrary billing rule? Come on now. OP was ignorant, and got tossed a lifeline. Also “just make everything zero dollars bro” is a ridiculous proposition.
Perhaps a bit ignorant, but to be fair that Netlify attempted to charge him is absolutely ridiculous. With my hosting provider, I would pay a whopping 50 EUR for the same bandwidth that he was asked to pay 104.5K USD for. That just shouldn't be possible to happen, especially on a free tier.
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I asked this question as "Ask HN" here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39524660
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only a weird take if you don't have any common sense. It's super simple: either offer unlimited bandwidth(since you're not charging these anyways), like Cloudflare Pages does, or put in place controls that will allow customer to set a top limit for their budget. You can't just all of a sudden send them a $104K bill and expect them to pay when the've never spent more than a few bucks. And then even worse, you can…
"Pay for what you use" is an arbitrary billing rule? Come on now. OP was ignorant, and got tossed a lifeline. Also “just make everything zero dollars bro” is a ridiculous proposition.
Pay for what I use works for airline seats and reserved compute/storage resources.
I have no control over how much traffic my public sites get. There is zero value in me signing up for a service which charges me based on traffic if I can’t control the maximum they’ll charge me. Would you sign up for an infinite bill?
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only a weird take if you don't have any common sense. It's super simple: either offer unlimited bandwidth(since you're not charging these anyways), like Cloudflare Pages does, or put in place controls that will allow customer to set a top limit for their budget. You can't just all of a sudden send them a $104K bill and expect them to pay when the've never spent more than a few bucks. And then even worse, you can…
"Pay for what you use" is an arbitrary billing rule? Come on now. OP was ignorant, and got tossed a lifeline. Also “just make everything zero dollars bro” is a ridiculous proposition.
In New Jersey I have to let an attendant pump my gas. If I have a heart attack while he’s pumping gas, but I never explicitly say “please stop once it’s full” and he, innocently enough, takes the still-flowing gas hose and pops it into a sewer grate once my tank is full, you’d be hard-pressed to find a reasonable person agree that the attendant was throwing me a lifeline when he refunds me after I come back complaining about my $2k gas receipt.
This is a dumb analogy, but the point is there is very obviously a pattern in this payment process that is ripe for abuse. The question of whether or not you aim to be an abusive business, plucking every shady profit where you can put the onus on the customer to try to come get their money back is one that many companies are deciding, and many are erring in the direction of the dark pattern.
By not working to avoid this problem from the get go, there is an implication about how a company wants to make their profits.
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I found out about this from twitter - weird how it's so buried on HN.
Re: Netlify just sent me a $104k bill for a simple static site
#510Netlify CEO here. Our support team has reached out to the user from the thread to let them know they're not getting charged for this. It's currently our policy to not shut down free sites during traffic spikes that doesn't match attack patterns, but instead forgiving any bills from legitimate mistakes after the fact. Apologies that this didn't come through in the initial support reply.
Made an account here to also let you know, I too am removing my websites from netlify ASAP. Thank you for bringing this to light.