Like every other Unlimited service, because people like this abuse the shit out of it then when it inevitably dies they run around exclaiming "dont blame me brah they said it was unlimited...., shouldn't have called it unlimited"
Well... yeah? If you let people advertise 'unlimited' but they can't actually deliver, you end up with a kind of market for lemons situation.
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There is a strongly utilitarian argument to not allowing such false statements.
It devalues the products of people that aren't bullshitting you. Say with fake-unlimited the "real limit" is 4TB before they start terminating you, but a different provider provides 5TB of capacity.
Because the former is allowed to outright lie, there is no way for the latter to effectively communicate that they are in fact offering a better product, instead they too have to make a bullshit "fake unlimited" claim to compete. Now because nobody has to actually back their claims with anything, they are infact massively incentivised to cut the "real storage" limits, because it will cut their costs, and they can still keep making the same claims.
Its a market for lemons[1] race to the bottom, and everyone loses, producer and consumer because scamming liars cannot be reliably assessed beforehand. So consumers lose faith in the entire market segment, and providers offering actual legitimate services become unsustainable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
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If you allow sellers to lie about information-opaque things like this, you drive the entire market to a shittier equilibrium, it should absolutely not be allowed.
Not backing up SoundCloud or the entire Internet for $5 a month
Well, it still kinda is - the physical drives have to live somewhere... ;-)
Actually Google only offers unlimited to business and education accounts, so they're absolutely not referring to personal data.
People are too f'in litteral, first
Unlimited === Store everything every created
PERSONAL in the context of the discussion would include documents created by a person in general course of business, my point is very clearly and only pedantic trolls do not understand the meaning of point I was attempting to address.
Business use would be for the business that signed up for the service, not for storing an entire copy of SoundCloud
What if that business is Soundcloud? As far as I can tell, Google places no limits on business users, numerical or otherwise.
If you want to design a cap - Goog probably has an idea of the kinds of file people store (whether it's pics or docs or videos or sheets etc...), pick a number of those that's impressive and is just lower than what your 10% power users has, and then use that to influence the package size.
2TB of files can easily be turned into "half a million photos" or like their previous ad campaigns, show how it can store every photo from birth to university for your kid or something. Or a love letter every day from first date to goodbye.
If you can't compete on the number, don't compete on the number.
This is why I so strongly prefer services that don't bullshit me. Tell me what you're exactly selling, for how much[1]. If promise to livestream setting your marketing department on fire, I'll pay double.
[1] If it is free, I already know what it costs and am not interested, thanks.
For reference, I don't store pirated content, rather content that I have a license for, but cloud providers have no way of knowing that. Unfortunately the dispute processes are unreliable, so when it's time to backup a media project, I play it safe and encrypt.
I'm pretty sure that they just assert that the backup is illegal even if it came from a licensed copy. One argument (used by Nintendo IIRC) is that the official media/servers are too reliable to require backups, and thus anything purporting to be a backup is really for another purpose and thereby not exempt under the statutes authorizing backups.
My entire Nintendo DS and 3DS cart collection was stolen in a break-in at my place. You can bet that instead of repurchasing I simply bought a flash cart.
I wouldn't trust such services to respect your rights in any capacity. In fact, I would argue that the "our incredible journey" trend is a form of property damage (a storage rental place can't just burn their store to the ground with customer's posessions still inside).
> Respect copyright laws. Do not share copyrighted content without authorization or provide links to sites where your readers can obtain unauthorized downloads of copyrighted content. It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. Repeated infringement of intellectual property rights, including copyright, will result in account termination. If you see a violation of Google's copyright policies, report copyright infringement.
Given that they cater to businesses, I don't think they could do automated scans.
It wouldn't be abuse if it was actually unlimited. They uploaded a finite (if large) amount of data to a service advertising infinite capacity.
I don't think OP is arguing that it's against ToS or anything like that. He is arguing that if people just upload stuff in these "unlimited" services all willy nilly soon they won't be unlimited anymore. The price will be the same, but they will drop the capacity to something reasonable. Which in turn might hurt some legitimate users.
I'm all for people backing up anything they feel like is necessary, but they just need to know that if they are going to be uploading Tera or even Peta bytes of data to "unlimited" service without paying much for it they are living on borrowed time.
Companies should be responsible for what they put in their marketing. If someone calling the bluff on the "unlimited" plan makes them "downsize" the plan to actual ~10TB + $x per Y additional TB, then so be it. It probably doesn't change the reality in any way, and at least the company is no longer lying about its service.
Obviously you are entitled to your opinion and again you are not wrong, false advertising is bad, but again if you are intentionally uploading stuff just to upload stuff be prepared to lose most of it when the limits come crashing down. Like the guy who had/has over Petabyte of video on Amazon if Amazon decides "OK unlimited was an bad idea, let's give everyone 10TB" where is he going to put the rest of this 1014TB of stuff? If the answer is "just let it get erased" then congratulations you are the reason why we can't have nice things.
If my alternative service had a much more reasonable offering with a high limit, that 95% of both companies users data would fit in I'm going to get screwed because I refuse to lie and call it unlimited.
That's more applicable when the other party is not being wrong by calling a service "unlimited", when it is not.
(and, arguably, assholes when they inevitably take it down with because "oops we didn't mean, like, unlimited unlimited")
I agree with your general point though. One thing that helps is that there's a certain throttle because of network bandwidth even if that isn't capped or deliberately throttled.
no youre not wrong.
am i wrong?
youre not wrong walter. youre just an asshole!
all right then.
Think of it as we are all contributing to keeping this data safe and available.
I am sure there will be people defending the car company as really offering unlimited colours, but obviously they have to restrict it to black, because some clients were unreasonable to expect the company to paint their car Neon Vermilion.
Or to put it another way, "You can have unlimited storage, except that it is limited..."
Unlimited is a marketing term used to express simply to the consumer there are not overall limits placed on your storage provided you adhere to the rest of the terms of service.
In the context of data cloud data stroage when Google, Amazon and the rest talk about "unlimited" they are referring to unlimited PERSONAL storage of data you create as a person, this would include backups of your personal computer, photos, important documents,etc
Not backing up SoundCloud or the entire Internet for $5 a month
So if you are a amateur photographer then storing 10TB of photos you took on the service is acceptable, downloading 900TB of music files you do not own, you did no create and have no permission to "as a backup" because the service is going to go under is abuse.
Which specific clause of the TOS is this violating?
In the context of data cloud data stroage when Google, Amazon and the rest talk about "unlimited" they are referring to unlimited PERSONAL storage of data you create as a person, this would include backups of your personal computer, photos, important documents,etc
That's your interpretation. Nowhere do they actually claim or imply that you're only supposed to use it for data you create as a person. In fact, it'd be absurd, considering that sharing files is built into the system.
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That companies lie to us repeatedly under the guise of "common sense", as if they followed the same standard when applying their unreadable TOSs against us, is bad enough.
Corporations are not your friends, and they won't hesitate to block you if you start becoming a liability. Assuming good faith is absurd, defending it publicly is grotesque.
In the United States for instance, making a copy of any digital media is generally illegal, period. The two major exceptions here are if you can prove "fair use", or if you are an archive or library.
"Fair use" is, of course, a very fuzzy term. Fuzzy enough to give companies enough wiggle room to terminate if, as probably most large archives would be, a person uploaded terabytes and terabytes of copyrighted media to their drive. (If said person shares copyrighted links in particular, that usually is explicitly called out in storage TOS clauses... but even if not, I think it would be difficult to claim "fair use" for a personal upload of Soundcloud to your Google drive.)
In the Archive Team's case, it looks like the Archive Team is using the Wayback Machine from archive.org. (http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Dev/Infrastructure) Libraries and archives have their own set of rules allowing limited copying (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108), in addition to the general "fair use case". My guess is due to questions of Soundcloud's longevity, archiving Soundcloud would qualify.
Well, that's doublespeak then, and if someone calls them out on it by actually testing the claim they make, so be it.
I don't understand why people seem not to mind being lied to their faces, as long as it's "just marketing".
Because most rational people use common sense and logic to come to the understanding that when a company is offering you "unlimited" storage for your PERSONAL FILES, they do not intend for you to go out and download SoundCloud as backup in case the SoundClould Service goes under
Just like when a "All you can Eat" buffet does not intend this to mean "All you can eat in your entire life" where by you fill grocery bags full of food to take home with you
How am I a "knuckle Head" in this situation, when I go to a buffet I eat a normal human portation of food inline with price I am charged for the meal
I do not eat 25 plates full of prime rib for $5.
I do not abuse business simply because "I technically can because it is in the rules"
I fucking hate people that look for these types of technicalities to exploit in society. These types of people are exactly why there are pages of Terms of service, and why we can not have nice things, because people can not be trusted to not abuse shit.
Come to think of it, I'm mostly in agreement with you. I do feel there's a difference between "all you can eat buffet" and "unlimited storage" (or "lifetime warranties"). The former is more of a reasonable and well-explained offer; the latter is more of a bogus marketing claim. I detest bogus marketing claim.
2 wrongs do not make a right and all that.
I'm not going to eat 25 plates of anything but, at a buffet, I have no issue with mostly going light on the cheaper fillers. And I'm not going to worry about it if I end up getting a "good deal" on the meal as a result.
Wait what? I mean the cost of admission is usually more like $50 but that's practically the SOP for Brazilian steakhouses. I have fasted for days just so that I could eat more.