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Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

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Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#81

Post by 2ion »

Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Does anyone have any good suggestion on an automated way to back up my entire google photos collection? Currently I use Google Takeout and then upload a ton of zip files to a backup like Backblaze. But it's tedious as heck and has me maintaining scripts to manage it. Which is the worst because I touch it once a year so I forget everything. I'd pay money for a business that handles this. I just want my photos safe fro…

I use Microsoft OneDrive to instantly upload my photos to the Camera Roll, and then I use a rclone daemon to move the images to 2 backup locations (after applying encryption).

I tried the way of uploading directly to my target backup locations from my phone using RCX (rclone for Android), but uploading camera roll at convenient times, automatic retry, and features like automatic albums and such are nice to have and hard to get in open-source software, so I stuck with OD.

rclone has a dedicated googlephotos source/sink module, so you can look into it.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#82

Post by nicoburns »

pontus wrote: post #47
imtringued wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you still want to play that game then restrict the service in other ways. You could for example throttle user upload to 10mbit/s if they have uploaded more than 500GB per month. That way no single user can practically upload more than 3.5TB per month. The 2 petabyte abuse scenario would have been avoided while still being able to brag about some users storing 50TB of data on your platform.

A side note on this: I always wondered when there'll be a lawsuit to this effect (the thing that originally prompted this thought was one of the carrier networks throttling download speed after some amount of data). In the extreme case, suppose you halve the upload speed after each chunk of size x. Then the amount of time to upload n*x amount of data will be 1+2+4+8+...+2^(n-1) units of time, which obviously diverges…

There are networks that let you do that. GiffGaff in the UK is one. They're even fairly generous in giving you a couple of extra GB for free if you only go over occasionally.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#84

Post by salawat »

selectodude wrote: post #80
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still calling it unlimited while placing a limit. You've been clever about how you impose the limit, but it's still there.

Unlimited storage means just that. They never said infinite inbound data transfer speeds. "If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable.

>"If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable."

No it isn't. On the one hand you say we'll store it if you can get it to us, then on the other you build an obstruction to data getting to you. Data propagation is part of storage. I have to get bits off my processor, to your physical media to be stored, and you just built a barrier to keep that from happening. You don't get to use "unlimited" for marketing attractiveness, then bait-and-switch.

So maybe to you it sounds reasonable, but to anyone that values being up front about the service they are offering, that's nothing more than selling a product you can't deliver, i.e., deception and false advertising.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#85

Post by cityzen »

A guide to scaling enterprise SaaS product and engineering teams, from $0 to past $100M ARR BUT we won't tell you where we work or who we are.

Am I missing something here? It's easy to give out advice anonymously and I don't really see anything in here that is groundbreaking.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#86

Post by tomcam »

taeric wrote: post #66

I'm hitting this with internet. So frustrating that for most places "unlimited data" is about 20 gigs.

But that’s like saying you are frustrated by auto companies because your car isn’t free and doesn’t last unlimited miles. Don’t you normally pay for things?

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#87

Post by selectodude »

salawat wrote: post #84
selectodude wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited storage means just that. They never said infinite inbound data transfer speeds. "If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable.

>"If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable." No it isn't. On the one hand you say we'll store it if you can get it to us, then on the other you build an obstruction to data getting to you. Data propagation is part of storage. I have to get bits off my processor, to your physical media to be stored, and you just built a barrier to keep that from happening. You don't get to use "unlimited" for mar…

I have unlimited data transfer on my home internet connection. Is my ISP pulling a "bait and switch" because my internet bandwidth isn't also unlimited? Ignoring the whole "physically impossible" thing, of course.

The entire universe is a bait and switch using that sort of logic.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#88

Post by gambiting »

redm wrote: post #17
sleavey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my findings, the reason unlimited doesn't work is a small percentage of users (very small, like ~0.1%) who push it to the extreme. In other words, if your exhaust 50% of your resources to service 0.1% of your users, at a fixed subscription cost, the model doesn't work. How do you handle such users at MediaFire?

There's nothing you can do other than move away from unlimited storage. The model, as the OP states, works well initially, however over time, "power users" emerge to want to make use of unlimited. The only choice is to remove unlimited storage as a fixed subscription fee. You may have metered billing (unlimited storage but you are charged per GB) or to do away with unlimited storage all together. Keep in mind, that c…

Actually, that's a pretty interesting solution, I wonder if that would work. Unlimited storage, but you can only upload 100GB per month. Or 1TB per year, so you can upload loads of data at once.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#89

Post by dawnerd »

oefrha wrote: post #18
redm wrote: post #3

I launched MediaFire as an unlimited storage provider in 2006. While it is true that data accumulates as time goes on, it's not as big of an issue as described. Older data tends to be smaller, for example, photos were lower resolution. That is compounded by the fact that storage is getting cheaper. For example, the price for a 500GB drive in 2006 is the same as a 14TB drive price today. If your getting the same subsc…

I've long suspected that r/DataHoarder is why we can't have nice things, i.e. cheap online data storage that is slightly subsidized by the average user who only stores a little. Thanks for confirming from the point of view of a major storage provider.

I don’t think it’s them, I think it’s the people at r/plex that are using google drive as their data store and people bragging about having 100s of tbs of content.

Re: Unlimited is like a Ponzi Scheme

#90

Post by taeric »

tomcam wrote: post #86
taeric wrote: post #66

I'm hitting this with internet. So frustrating that for most places "unlimited data" is about 20 gigs.

But that’s like saying you are frustrated by auto companies because your car isn’t free and doesn’t last unlimited miles. Don’t you normally pay for things?

What? I paid for an "unlimited" plan. With a family of six on it, we are past the limit in less than two weeks.

Would be akin to getting a monthly bus pass that cuts you off if you use it four times a day every day. Sure, it is more than most people use, so surely unlimited bus use for the month should just be two trips five times a week? :)

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