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Comment by almostdigital | Hacker News Reader

I'm a customer and they didn't even send out an email about it. And no grace period? Effective today and you'll loose your data if you don't pay up?

This should be illegal, I'm never trusting Amazon with my business again.

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You don't lose your data, you just lose the ability to upload more. You can still view, download, and delete your data.

8) What happens to my content if I choose not to renew into one of the new storage plans?

When your paid storage subscription expires, your account will be considered in an over-quota status if your content stored is greater than the free storage quota on your account. If your account is in an over-quota status, you will not be able to upload additional files, and can only view, download, and delete content.

Ah, missed that part, maybe I flew off the handle a little then. Still really scummy not to alert their customers about a big change like this.

Looks like I have 180 days to move before getting deleted, guess I'd better pray they don't decide to cap download speeds...

I don't think you should worry about overreacting. I'm working on an e2e encrypted sync/backup service right now and I would never dream about pulling off such a move. But I'm a pussy and not a "fierce businessperson". Long story short, Amazon can afford to not give a fuck about losing the trust of the users of one of their small sattelite services, maybe you should consider a business whose trustworthiness affects their bottom line.

180 days to move after your 1 year plan expired. If you signed up for your plan 364 days ago, then that's really unfortunate timing. Otherwise, you have more than 180 days.

And the very next paragraph

  You have a 180-day grace period
  to either delete content to
  bring your total content
  within the free quota, or to
  sign up for a paid storage plan.
  After 180 days in an over-quota
  status, content will be deleted
  (starting with the most recent
  uploads first) until your
  account is no longer over quota

So if you have more than 30TB stored (the new maximum), you have 189 days after your current subscription expires to get it off before it's auto deleted.

Out of curiosity, what would you expect them to do with your data if you don't have a subscription? Keep it forever?

being that you put that data there with the understanding that you could keep it forever - yes...

You expect a company to continue to provide a service for you after you stop paying them?

I expect a company to abide by the terms of the deal that I entered into, not to change the deal. Pray that they do not alter it further.

The deal that you entered into had a set duration, and it was only binding for a set period of time for which you paid for. Once the money/time runs out, you'll need to renegotiate a deal, which Amazon has done.

From amazon's release: "Current customers will keep their existing unlimited storage plan through its expiration date."

Which means they are honoring the deal and not altering it and are abiding by the terms agreed to.

Six months is a generous time limit; I can think of dozens of services I've used in the past who changed their terms or went out of business, and the customer was given 30 days or less to migrate.

I'm not trying to be an Amazon apologist, just being realistic.

I also didn't get any e-mail. I recently started using it as my backup solution with duplicity. Feels good not to be worried about TBs stored.

I thought that while random backup company may not understand full implications of offering a free unlimited storage, Amazon is the one that should, and that worst case I'll get my upload throttled.

Well I guess it was a bit too good to be true.

I'm an unlimited storage customer and I just found out about this change here on HN, not happy about that..

I will say that even at $60/yr for 1TB and unlimited photos, its still a nice deal.

I'm glad that this happened in my trial period. I haven't yet spent the time making this a core part of my backup strategy.

I posted this link because I got an OSX notification through their Mac app, oddly enough.

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