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Comment by shreddit | Hacker News Reader

This being a thing should have been pretty obvious. “Unlimited” never means unlimited in a literal sense. Even if phrased like so.

And loosing actual backup files a whole different story…

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There is a commonly and widespread accepted definition of the term "unlimited" If anyone uses it outside of that definition, it needs to be disclosed upfront. If that didn't happen, then it's "unlimited" as in the common widespread definition of the term.

If you change the definition later, then you have changed your mind and look for a loophole to f people over.

That's all there is to it.

They said unlimited and now they're not keeping their word.

Sure, but if something seems too good to be true then it probably is. As an academic with hundreds of TB of data, I personally wouldn’t assume that some company would actually provide unlimited storage in perpetuity when the costs are clear and obvious.

Of course I would. It's Google! They can do it! And obviously they did.

How else do we explain people with petabytes of data on Google's drives when the term "unlimited" meant "30GB"?

My main point is that the costs of storage are fairly well known. One can estimate the cost to google of provisioning the datacenter class storage that a user with PB of data is using, and if your estimate of the situation is that it seems like that arrangement is likely to continue, then great. In my estimate, that seems unlikely unless there's a business case to be made for google (there certainly are some, like building familiarity in the system for academic trainees who may then go start startups or purchase storage from positions in industry).

If there's a place in the world I would expect to not have capacity issue, that's Google. If I were a judge, I wouldn't rule it's unreasonable for users to assume that it can store as many data as they produce, after having committed and advertised to do so.

Saying something and then pretending you actually meant a different thing is lying. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to understand the minutia of an industry and intuit whether "unlimited" actually means "unlimited".

Unlimited has never meant unlimited in its truest sense. It’s just that the consumer tends to have their own natural limits, whether that’s time, or attention span, or the human body’s ability to ingest liquid.

Well the public at large seems to disagree with the corporate definition of unlimited. Also these unlimited storage accounts of consumers are stacked so high with data they are taxing the physical limits of google's storage pools?

Methinks someone at google is angling for a promotion behind a good ole rug pull knowing people will pay rather than have to shift that data around.

Consumers don't need langauge lessons they need to learn business is not to ever to be taken at their word without contracts & legal counsel involved. They are zero-trust players.

While your response is sincerely appreciated, it entirely misses the point. I'm not arguing definitions or "language lessons". I'm saying that any reasonable person understands that every single instance of "unlimited" with respect to the definition of a product or service is, with few if any exceptions, are not actually unlimited.

Unlimited Coke refills at a soda fountain aren't unlimited. The human body is naturally limited by how much it can drink. Elide that natural limit and you still butt up against a person's stamina for doing objectively stupid things. Elide that limit and you're still limited by the amount of syrup on hand at that location.

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