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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

#711

Post by remram »

xatax wrote: post #699
jotaen wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One additional feedback, for consideration: to me, your Pricing page[1] doesn’t make it sufficiently clear that the “Starter” plan may incur costs at all (let alone in this ballpark). It’s now more apparent when looking at it in hindsight, but you have to either read very carefully, or go to the separate “View Features” page to understand this. “0$ to get started, then pay as you go” reads to me: “0$ to get started,…

> 0$ to get started, then pay as you go” reads to me: “0$ to get started, and then you can order add-ons and extra features as you need them I think I disagree with this, but maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Pay as you go sounds strongly to me that you pay based on your actual usage, not that it's free except for add-ons. A pay as you go phone, for example, does not imply you need to buy a telephony add-on, an SMS add…

> you pay based on your actual usage

The disagreement is on what "usage" means. I wouldn't assume that "usage" includes things that don't take any action on my part.

If I don't use my phone, for example, I wouldn't get any "usage". A phone pay-as-you-go plan would probably trigger similar outrage if they charged you potentially unlimited amounts for phone calls that hit your voicemail overnight.

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

#713

Post by ilaksh »

carlmr wrote: post #158
hayst4ck wrote: post #65

Defaulting to unbounded liability as the standard operating procedure for cloud infrastructure should be illegal.

Yep, this is a company that screams for more regulation.

If people are paying attention then Netlify should be done as a company.

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

#715

Post by ilaksh »

rsolva wrote: post #159

Hosting personal sites on cheap hardware at home makes even more sense to me after reading this horror story. Why do not more technically inclined people self-host? Is it force of habit from how things are done at work? I would much rather run the "risk" of some occasional dowtime, than keeping the lights on at all costs under a DDoS-attack.

It's impractical because residential internet speed is very asymmetrical and behind NAT. You will still need external service to get around the NAT thing and the fact you don't have a static IP.

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

#717

Post by _gabe_ »

is_true wrote: post #597
jpambrun wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time you forgive the bill you may have caused significant psychological distress, maybe even irreparable. This doesn't feel like a responsible approach.

This is the way most companies work unfortunately. Paypal limits your account and makes you wait 6 month to (maybe) give you a way to get the money back.

This is why I stopped using PayPal. My credit card company allows me to issue chargebacks with typically very little friction because of my credit history. PayPal once put me through the wringer for an order I cancelled and never received a refund for. After that I deleted my PayPal account and decided to never use it again. In this case, I would take my site off Netlify and never use it again.

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

#718

Post by iteratethis »

It's like all cloud providers are in some cartel where they refuse to implement the most basic counter-bankruptcy features.

The request is very simple: max budget per month. Shut it down if it exceeds it. Implement it already and stop with the excuses.

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

#719

Post by pierat »

amtamt wrote: post #642
pierat wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon will, but they also gauge their discount in how many prevention and security measures from their 5 Pillars you follow in your environment. You can do stuff like "disallow any of these instances to be used in your env", so if you never use graphics cards, disallow the whole class. You can also set limits like "no more than 20x m5.4xlarge". But again, AWS is the worst about no actual hard limits, cause each syst…

When people have to read and implement "5 pillars" or "cloud adoption frameworks" before start using cloud, learning stuff like hosting with hetzner or self hosting start to seems like comparatively easy and simple.

Exactly. Cloud was sold as "simple", but in reality you MUST know about data center operations, security in an effective zero-trust environment, failover vs HA vs load balancing, and so many footguns.

The big advantage to "cloud" was that you can provision more resources in seconds. Existing data centers had terrible non-VM and non-good VM management software that provisioning more CPU, RAM, storage was a weeks or months long trial.

And you can still get a 100k bill for hosting a SINGLE text file, cause DDoS and shitty hosting providers who demand unlimited credit is a thing.

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

#720

Post by jokethrowaway »

jedberg wrote: post #602
raiyu wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did this at DigitalOcean for similar reasons, wasn't a feature that was commonly used. Additionally, when you set that limit people then get upset because usually when they go over it for a good reason, like going viral, they aren't anticipating it, and just when their traffic is most valuable the site is down. What Netlify is doing here is really the best approach for both parties. And typically speaking a $104k…

> Also, that's the benefits of credit cards - that you can still issue a charge back, and credit card companies very much favor the consumer rather than the merchant. That has not been my experience. I've had to do a few chargebacks for services not rendered, and I've never won. I will submit my evidence, then the vendor will submit 100 pages of random emails, and then I will have my claim denied. Then I will appeal,…

As a seller I have the opposite experience.

Plenty of morons just use the service and chargeback right before renewal so they got the service for free, some just chargeback instead of cancelling their plan or asking a refund. I get hit with 15$ bill plus I lose all the money even if I provided the service.

Whatever email / data from my system I send is ignored and the scammer / moron gets his money back.

I'm sure that's how it works if the vendor is large enough.

If you are a small fish you don't stand a chance, which is why for my next project (where I'm supposed to charge a lot and spend a lot on behalf of the user - and I'll be royally screwed if I start getting chargebacks on 500$ of which I've already spent 450$) I'll just accept crypto payments.

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