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Comment by resoluteteeth | Hacker News Reader

> Google response isn't correct but everyone here has there hands a bit dirty. Storing 237 Tb on an unlimited server - the individual clearly knew they were taking advantage of a system and probably should have been ready for some kind of remedy.

Google clearly made a mistake in offering an "unlimited plan" so it makes perfect sense that they're going to discontinue it, and offer 60 days before the data becomes read only. If it was just that, there wouldn't be any article.

The fact that they regret offering an unlimited plan doesn't, however, give them the right to tell him that they're going to give him 60 days before the data becomes read only but it won't be deleted and then suddenly tell him that actually his data is going to be deleted in 7 days, which isn't sufficient time to transfer it elsewhere.

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Perhaps it was a mistake, but offering unlimited was a competitive advantage. Others working with the economies of storage had limits or priced based on usage; having unlimited would be a great way to draw in customers. I'm highly skeptical of tech companies effectively price dumping, harming competition, and then coming out and saying "Oops, that wasn't sustainable. Here are the new terms." I'm of the mindset that if you offered an unlimited plan you should have to grandfather in customers that bought into that plan.

It's also naive to think a big tech company wouldn't be aware of power distributions (see Pareto) when offering anything unlimited. Which Google does continue to offer unlimited data on Google Fi, but throttles (even though they also discontinued the unlimited photo upload with Pixels and many times offers expansion of drive space but if you upgrade to a paid plan you don't get the additional storage, you just get get expanded to that size...)

I also very much agree that the monopolistic behavior you're mentioning is not a think we should just go accepting and even more, not be victim blaming. It feels really weird to me that people are blaming the reporter. You know, a 1.6 trillion dollar company vs well... nearly anyone else.

I don't feel at all bad about throttling mobile data.

For reference, the standard scam before was to offer $40/month for e.g. 1GB of data. At that point, you'd pay a crazy amount for each additional MB of data. This was horrible with very fast data, where you could accidentally burn through the whole quota with a misclick e.g. grabbing a large download.

Unlimited with throttle is super-friendly in comparison. I need data in case of an emergency -- enough to send and get emails and have GPS. I don't need 4k video streaming in an emergency. I don't want a $1000 bill for that. It keeps me in a sensible position, without requiring unlimited liability for the carrier.

Oh, I actually appreciate unlimited with throttle. They've always had data caps too but I wouldn't be surprised if the average user knew about them. But maybe the overage plan manager did because Fi is niche? And sorry, I was just bringing up Fi as an example of something being unlimited since so many people were acting like nothing is.

Well, no. Fi is not unlimited. This is how it works.

My cell network (not Fi) has crazy fast internet (I'd throttle it if I could, t avoid overusing it).

If I go over some amount, it goes to 3G speeds (probably 200kbps or similar).

If I were to run at 3G speeds -- continuously, peak speed -- for a month, I couldn't e.g. hit a terabit of data. Ergo, there is a cap, and it's short of 100GB. You cannot get to 100GB be because of the throttle.

I think this is very good behavior, but it is capped.

Wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of Google employees hang out here and try to deliberately influence comments. Same for the other companies.

I'm sure a bunch of Google employees hang out here. That's literally the draw of HN. But conspiracy? I'm not convinced.[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38521408

Yeah usually the thing about deadlines is that you should communicate them as harshly as possible, then let them slip when they do arrive. I.e. they want people off the service voluntarily and deal with the tiny fraction that refuses.

> Yeah usually the thing about deadlines is that you should communicate them as harshly as possible, then let them slip when they do arrive.

Is this not exactly what has happened? He was clearly threatened harshly, and... the data isn't yet deleted?

No; the opposite happened.

Google initially told him that there was no hard deadline for getting the data off—just that his drive would be read-only as long as it was over the limit.

Then, 6 months later, they told him he had 7 days to get it off or it would be wiped.

Right, exactly. "He has 7 days or it would be wiped" is a threat, not a punishment. Was the data wiped or not? What are you willing to bet that we'll actually see a followup claiming the data was wiped? Almost certainly he's going to download the thing onto $3k of SSDs and get off the service, which is what everyone wants.

Moving 237.22 TB in 7 days requires ~3.14 Gbps of bandwidth, assuming that the clock starts ticking the moment that he actually starts moving data. In practice, the requirements would be even higher (subtracting out the time between notice being sent and read, plus time to actually set up alternative storage). Does Google even provide that level of read throughput to Google Drive customers?

I have to repeat the question: do you genuinely believe this data is going to be inevitably deleted, or maybe do you think that the threat will work and the guy will get his stuff downloaded somehow?

Do you similarly think it's perfectly ok for a loanshark to "threaten" to smash the customer's knees if they don't pay up in 7 days? Because obviously they wouldn't really do that?

He wasn’t threatened harshly. He was told his data would become read-only, which he took at face value and assumed his data would remain safe. Then suddenly he was told the data would be deleted within seven days.

> He wasn’t threatened harshly. [...] he was told the data would be deleted within seven days

How exactly is that not a harsh threat? Sounds like a harsh threat to me. They were nice before, he didn't comply, now they're jerks. But it remains just a threat unless they actually wipe the data. Which they won't, because he's surely downloading it right now while we yell about it on HN.

I was referring to the making it read-only.

And there’s no practical way to download that amount of data within seven days, just based on the bandwidth this would require. The situation would be totally different if they gave him six months notice for the deletion.

I think you're misunderstanding the contention upthread and confusing the threat ("we'll delete all your stuff in 7 days") with the actual enforcement of that threat (deleting said data, which hasn't happened, and I'm betting almost certainly won't as the guy will find some way to comply).

The poster upthread was trying (vainly, I guess) to make a distinction between the two.

> They were nice before, he didn't comply…

He didn’t comply with what? Show me where in Google’s communications where it said they were going to delete his data.

In this case, the initial notification (reproduced in the article) didn’t threaten to delete the files. Instead of communicating the threat harshly, it said that after 60 days his account would be placed in “read-only” mode.

It sounds like he (I think reasonably) believed that would be the new reality after the grace period: that he couldn’t write new files, but that his existing data would be accessible indefinitely in read-only form.

Sure, it’s clear from the context that Google vaguely wants him to stop being a headache for them. But planning for a read-only future is very different from planning for your data to be vaporized. As GP points out, Google could get eviction done in the same timeframe but save considerable face if the initial correspondence had said “you’re using way too much, it’s against our TOS, and we’re deleting your data in 30 days,” then given him a 30-day “reprieve” when the deadline drew near.

Wait, there's no option for him to just pay for more data in Google drive month to month until he has time to complete a migration?

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