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Too many users abused unlimited Dropbox plans, so they’re getting limits
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Why, you know there isn't mythical endless and free source of crab legs right?
Nobody should reasonably think there is. "Endless" is advertising. You're suppose to still respect that its a business and that other people will want some as well.
If there's not then they have no business selling an unlimited supply of it.
Where I'm from services should be as advertised, legally so.
It's was unlimited. People uploaded whatever they wanted. The business had to reassess because these gluttonous people took it too far and so the service ended.
In what world are "unlimited" and "all you can eat" synonymous with "too far"?
"Too far" implies a definite limit, which is the antonym of unlimited and all you can eat, regardless of the business's ability to sustain it. If there is a limit, don't advertise it as unlimited or all you can eat that's false advertisement.
In what world is anything unlimited
In the marketing department apparently.
Companies should stop saying unlimited if we all agree nothing is unlimited, don’t you think?
We should be more responsible with services offered regardless what the service is otherwise. Growing up i remember life time guarantees, they no longer exist because these people who abuse services
Lifetime guarantees are absolutely still a thing. But it’s normally for higher priced items since the quality of the average ware went down.
I agree with you that customers should become more responsible for the decisions they make. But we’ve proven time and time again (for decades if not longer) that customers are not rational actors that know everything about everything. Ads would never work if that was a thing.
But here we are. There are laws against false advertising and words have exact meanings. The fact that “unlimited” is still not false advertising baffles me. It should be.
I guess you’re okay with predatory wordings in product descriptions that target people who don’t understand that things cannot be without limits? Just because they should know better, ignoring the fact you don’t know everything? Where do you draw the line? Would you blindly trust a single drug description saying it cures cancer, though no such thing can ever exist?
No, they no longer exist bc they were never sustainable, but they knew that in the first place and sold it as "life time" bc they knew they could make money by lying to customers. Lying is bad and we all agree businesses shouldn't lie, no?
Whose lifetime. Your lifetime, my lifetime. Maybe the product lifetimw
That's kind of the point: Companies shouldn't be allowed to advertise anything as unlimited when it is, in fact, not.
They shouldn't advertise lots of things but personal responsibility could have resulted in this service still being available so the bigger issue to me is the self regulation. I would bet good money the reason people used this much storage was for commercial reasons which would be abusing a personal use account. Which people should be pissed at rather than the unlimited.
Companies shouldn't be allowed to lie about services, full stop.
They didn't lie. Users could upload whatever they could. But individuals uploaded so much it made the company reassess what they offered. So like in life, the rest of us lose out because a handful of assholes abused a system
Unlimited doesn't mean "upload what you want to a certain limit", it means "upload what you want, as much as you want".
You're misunderstanding the word unlimited, as countless others before me have already pointed out to you
No I'm understanding that unlimited doesn't mean I shouldn't consider if uploading 30 TB of data would cause problems just like I don't assume free condiment's means I can take every condiment in the restaurant
2 things wrong with that analogy:
Restaurants don't advertise "unlimited condiments".
Condiments aren't the main business of a restaurant.
But if a restaurant offers an all-you-can-eat buffet, there will be people stuffing themselves silly, because that's what they advertised.
Its not a bad analogy because both are services provided by a company. Both are up to the user to determine their usage. Both are services that over consuming of the service makes everyone lose the service. Free condiment's and unlimited data are both do not impose restrictions on customers. But customers should self regulate in both instances. At some point when you're uploading 20 TB you have to stop and wonder when the ride ends just like a normal person would when you're stuffing your purse full of ketchup packets
If the restaurant advertises all-you-can-EAT condiments then it would be within my rights to stuff myself silly on ketchup. But filling my pockets would be against their terms. Similarly, if they advertised "as many ketchup packets as you can take home for $5", they can't cry to me when I bring home their whole supply of ketchup packets.
Similarly, if Dropbox is offering unlimited personal storage, they'd be well within their rights to ban me if I resold it. But using to store 20TB of my own shit is me doing exactly what they advertised.
I wish the world was as utopian as you described. Unfortunately, and I'm sorry to say, that's an extremely naive world view you hold. I hope you won't be taken advantage of by people with less good intentions.
You seem to be struggling with the English language and what words mean. This is beyond my ability to help you at this point so have a good day and good luck!
No I'm not. The issue isn't unlimited as the company did offer unlimited storage. You could upload whatever you wanted. The issue was that too many people used so much of it that they ruined the service for everyone. Which is why the issue are the users who abuse a service.
In what world do Nigerian princes email random people and offer to send them millions of dollars? Is it ok to scam old people and idiots because they should know better?
No, if it was unlimited, I should be able to pipe /dev/urandom to it for fun if that's what I choose to do. What's this about "gluttony"? They sold the service as that.
You can do it doesn't mean you should which is my point. I can leave trash in a theater because they offer a service where workers clean it up. Doesn't mean I should even though it'd advertised as part of the theater experience.
I'd go so far to say that we're dealing with a culture of people who are in capable of self regulating and that is why so many things are worse for people today. Just because its offered as a service shouldn't mean I push its limits regardless of the gimmick used to advertise it.
Why are you arguing on behalf of a company? Why use the word unlimited if it is not unlimited?
I'm not. Do you have access to this service anymore?
No one does because of a handful of abusive people who took it too far. This isnt the only case of this either. I'm arguing because I've lost many good services because of people that cant self regulate themselves
Why would you need to regulate the usage of an unlimited service? Aren't you paying for the luxury of not having to regulate yourself to a fixed limit?
Why would you need to regulate anything. Why can't I leave my shopping cart where ever I like. Why shouldn't I leave all the trash in my seat. Why shouldn't I throw cigarette butts out my window. There's lots of advertised services that are limitless that doesn't make it right to abuse it
None of the things you mentioned were a service you paid for, that's called a false equivalency.
I would say go ahead if you were paying for a shopping cart collector, personal trash collector, and a cigarette butt collector. Why would you hire them if you did not intend to use their services?
The business made a deal, people took them up on their offer. It was a voluntary action on each side. If there was no intention or ability follow through on what they were offering, they should not have done so in the first place. Just make the cap 30tb or whatever. This eliminates the potential for abuse and does not trick consumers into thinking they will receive the service they paid for.
You've clearly got no critical thinking skills. Don't be upset that people expect to be able to use a service they pay for, from a company that chose to offer that service.
This isn't reddit. It would be better to keep that smarmy stuff there. But that's my opinion
They are services as the condiments cost the business and require employee's to keep these items stocked. Other services include city workers having to pick trash up and clean sweep streets. Carts don't just put themselves away either. It requires employees to clean up after people who didn't put their cart away.
All services that when abused will cost every other user more to use those services which is why most inherently self regulated their impact on those services.
The storage was unlimited. You could store what you'd like. But the 1% of users took advantage and cost the rest to lose that service >
I think the fact that every comment of yours has multiple down votes speaks for itself. Ya lost this one buddy. Pack it in.
Even back on reddit that was never true. Don't put so much into fake internet votes. All it shows is there are people who are emotionally invested.
U got a bad take n r very angy nobody agrees
Then why advertise it as "unlimited" or "all you can eat"? That's false advertisement.
Because we all know its a business and that unspoken thing is the same everywhere, you have access to a service just don't be a dick about it.
If the theater specifically advertised itself as a place where you could leave as much trash as you wanted, then yes, that would make it reasonable to do.
The business advertised something to differentiate itself from the free market, it's not the free markets fault if the business cannot sustain what it advertised
It partially is the fault of the user
What? How? The user is simply taking advantage of what is being offered
The theater has a service where they clean up after customers right. So I can take advantage of the service by leaving all my garbage on the ground. Hell I could bring my own garbage from home and Leave it for them. Taking advantage of services in some cases creates a risk that you'll lose that service for everybody else and that should mean any service we use should mean we assess if the way we use any service is creating that risk
Yea but all you can eat buffets have a clear limit: The stomach size of the guests. It’s not an unlimited dinner. It’s specifically limited to the amount you can eat. (Besides that, a lot of all you can eat places have a time limit of an hour or sth).
If dropbox or google offer unlimited storage, then it’s only reasonable to use that storage. After all, that’s what you signed up for. It’s not abuse if they tell me it’s okay beforehand. As long as the terms of service don’t specify a limit, there is none. And if the terms of service do specify a limit, then unlimited is false advertising. If they don’t want you to use as much data as you like, they should have called it the 20TB plan or whatever they see as reasonable.
A way to offer unlimited storage but "cripple" it enough, so users won’t fill your server quicker than you‘d like, would be to only allow a certain size of uploads per month. So you have unlimited storage but you can only upload, say, a 100GB a month. That way, it‘d take almost a year to fill up a Terabyte and you can still claim unlimited storage. That would of course also cause backlash but you could technically still offer unlimited storage.
Yes all that works and better. It still shouldn't change that I should also recognize that taking a service to its limits would cause me and others to lose it.
But there weren't limits... it was unlimited...
And that's not reasonable to anybody who is going to upload 20TB. Every party involved knew what would happen
Why do you get to decide what is reasonable? I could see pro videographers shooting in 4k easily hitting that mark just doing their job. You're acting like this was a case of trolls ruining it for normal people when you have literally zero evidence that it wasn't people just using it how they were told it could be used. If you have bad actors abusing your system, the solution is to remove the bad actors, not punish everyone else for thinking you weren't lying.
We all get to decide because we're responsible for our actions. I should always ask if I'm using or abusing a service and if it'll negatively impact others. Or I don't and I run the risk of running things into the ground and losing a good thing for everyone.
You brought up a professional videographer as and example. A professional should be using a commercial service that is set up for that. This was personal use storage which I would bet was not used for personal storage, instead it was used commercially.
Oh if only you had bothered even opening up the article. literally the second line: