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It's frustrating to watch cloud companies subsidize their storage, in order to break into the market with a product that is too good to be true. This strategy

It's frustrating to watch cloud companies subsidize their storage, in order to break into the market with a product that is too good to be true. This strategy is the worst possible scenario for our entire industry. Users feel slighted, and the trustworthiness of the cloud in general is gradually eroded, as the scenario plays itself out over and over. It feels like ransomware. Pay more or we'll delete your files. When Dropbox for Business launched, it was $12.50 / user / month for "all the storage you need". Just recently Dropbox announced pricing changes, which will take effect in 2018. The new unlimited plan is $20.00 / user / month. And for those unwilling to pay, there's now a fixed storage tier, which is slightly cheaper than the original price, but it's capped at 1 TB. Microsoft OneDrive included unlimited storage with any Office 365 subscription. After millions of users bought in, Microsoft dropped the maximum storage to 1 TB. Users were then given the choice of deleting their files, or moving elsewhere. Mozy had an unlimited plan, and then dropped it and raised prices. SugarSync had an unlimited plan, but eventually dropped it. Barracuda offered virtually unlimited cloud storage with their Copy.com service. A few years in and Barracuda shut down the entire service. Users were given very little notice, and had to move elsewhere. Bitcasa, one of the original "unlimited" cloud storage providers (and a TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield finalist) crashed and burned three years in. Again, users were given very little notice, and there was talk of a class-action lawsuit. Time and time again we're seeing startups burn through their capital subsidizing the storage as some sort of brilliant marketing plan. It's not. Disclaimer, I work at https://www.sync.com https://www.sync.com

illumin8 9y ago
To be fair, this is not "pay more or we'll delete your files." That would be a terrible way to treat customers. Customers will simply lose the ability to upload new files. All their existing content will still be there.
- panopticon 9y ago
  > 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. Looks like that's not the route Amazon took.
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tootie 9y ago
You should never trust unlimited anything. It's never really unlimited. They should really just offer a "as big as a reasonable person could want" package. For a household that wants to backup some phones and PCs and the family photo album, you can offer 5-10TB of storage and they'll never fill it up. But eventually you know that a handful of power users are going to abuse the system to the point that you have to stop.
- ytjohn 9y ago
  I like how Google did their storage. They started off with a something that was (at the time) insane amount of storage for email, like 1GB. Then they slowly increased that over time as storage costs decreased. It was never unlimited, but it seemed unlimited compared to their competitors, who were often at 1/10th or even 1/100th the space. Granted that's more difficult to do today as more players have embraced the concept. Google Photos (formerly Picasa) came out with unlimited storage for photos, and Amazon Cloud Drive is a response to that. ACD still offers unlimited photos, but they should never have tried offering unlimited "other files" storage. They have been doing cloud storage to technically adept people for years. I don't know why they thought they could offer a rather similar service, mark it as unlimited, and not expect people to use the cheap unlimited option over their per-use pricing plan.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  But I say that they're not "abusing" the system as long as the company is offering "unlimited" service. They're actually not offering "unlimited" service, so it's the companies that are abusing the buyers, not the other way around. If companies offered like you said, a "large enough" package with some limit, instead of "unlimited", then I would absolutely agree that they're abusing the system.
williamle8300 9y ago
Yup. Totally agreed. But duuuude. How much did you pay for that domain?! NOICE.
- jasonsync 9y ago
  Back in 2013 we originally launched with the domain name "Sync.us" (we didn't have a choice, the .com was taken). Instant regret, as it made branding difficult, and our marketing efforts simply drove traffic to the many, more recognizable sync branded TLDs. Then a few months later, one of our team members inadvertently visited Sync.com (a common Freudian domain name slip for all of us), and discovered the domain was up for auction. Instead of subsidizing our storage, like most of our competition was doing at the time, we diverted a substantial portion of our marketing budget towards winning the auction ;-) It wasn't cheap.
hbosch 9y ago
The trouble here is, I think, "unlimited" tends to just mean "a lot" and for Average Joe that's fine. If you go to an all-you-can eat buffet, you will eventually be unwelcome after you have 20 plates stacked on your table. Is that a business problem or a customer abuse problem? The ugly fact is the Unlimited Amazon Drive has been abused by media pirates and data-hoarders to store up to 20TB (and sometimes more) at what any reasonable person would say is an unreasonable cost. Not to mention, much of this media is accessed and streamed often. Wander over to /r/PlexShares to get an idea: imagine if someone had 20TB of 4K and BluRay movies stored on your service @ a very generous $60/yr, streaming that data 24/7 to 10, 15, maybe 20 people via Plex (with each streamer paying the media manager $10 a month) all over the world. While torrenting all day. Suddenly that sounds more like abuse IMO. Of course, I agree that you shouldn't call something "Unlimited" if it isn't. But it's not a one-sided issue and I thought I'd bring that up. I don't personally know anyone, in real life, who uses Amazon Drive. Most people don't even know it exists. The only time I see it discussed, especially the "unlimited" tier, is on /r/datahoarders and /r/seedboxes as an exploitable deal. As far as I can tell, Prime Photos will remain unlimited. I wonder how long it'll be before media hoarders hide their content in Google/Prime Photos with a convenient CLI tool?
- Taek 9y ago
  I have seen ACD accounts storing more than 1000 TB of data (mostly collected by scraping porn sites) for a mere $60 a year. If you offer unlimited, expect people to take advantage.
- mrighele 9y ago
  > The ugly fact is the Unlimited Amazon Drive has been abused by media pirates and data-hoarders to store up to 20TB Somebody on reddit bragged about reaching more than 1PB [0] > Of course, I agree that you shouldn't call something "Unlimited" if it isn't. I am maybe nitpicking, but it really was unlimited. Nobody is being billed for exceeding a given threshold or stopped from using it. The service is being discontinued and people will not be able to renew it. They never said "forever" :-). It's like I got a special deal from my gym for unlimited access. If next year they won't offer it anymore I cannot say "it was not unlimited". > As far as I can tell, Prime Photos will remain unlimited. I wonder how long it'll be before media hoarders hide their content in Google/Prime Photos with a convenient CLI tool? In another thread on reddit somebody was already talking about that, so I guess it won't be long. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/5s7q04/i_hit_a_bit_of_a_milestone_today/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/5s7q04/i_hit_a...
ballenf 9y ago
I disagree on the effect this has on consumers. I am a paying customer of several cloud storage services, 2 of which you mention. The effect on me of the temporary unlimited tiers is that I get to know my data usage requirements for a while before I have to choose a tier. It's really a very welcome intro to cloud storage. I can easily see that even with truly unlimited storage I only used xxGB and therefore can choose the appropriate tier with confidence that my costs won't jump. One surprise about these unlimited deals is that I'd rather pay Apple for photo storage than use a third-party service that is free (or included in Prime, e.g.). I tried multiple free photo storage services, but the convenience of Apple's offering far outweighs the cost saving. If you want unlimited cloud storage the G Suite $10 / month plan is still unlimited. (Actually it says 2 PB in Google Photos when backing up original size photos & videos.)
WhitneyLand 9y ago
You forgot one more reason this is crappy behavior. It unfairly crowds out startups who want to go with a sustainable business model from the outset. I realize "fairness" is not an excuse for inability to compete with the marketing of other companies. But if a company wants to test customer appetite for a service with pricing that is upfront honest, stable, and bound to only get better over time, there's never enough time to give it a proper shot.
- StillBored 9y ago
  This is just the technical equivalent of dumping or subsidizing, and has become fairly common in quite a number of industries to keep out competitors. The complete lack of regulation enforcement has been a problem for at least the last 40 years. To me it also seems to be a hallmark of the SV venture capital scene, where the majority of the capital isn't used to build a better product but to flood the market for a few years to gain a controlling share.
blazespin 9y ago
"unlimited" is such a stupid word. TANSTAAFL. There should be an advertising law against the word "unlimited".
Semaphor 9y ago
FWIW, backblaze still has unlimited storage. Of course it's cold storage, so abusing that is harder.
yuhong 9y ago
I found out about OneDrive for Business which on some plans lets you bump up beyond 5TB by calling support. I wonder how that works.

illumin8 9y ago

To be fair, this is not "pay more or we'll delete your files." That would be a terrible way to treat customers. Customers will simply lose the ability to upload new files. All their existing content will still be there.

panopticon 9y ago
> 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. Looks like that's not the route Amazon took.
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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tootie 9y ago

You should never trust unlimited anything. It's never really unlimited. They should really just offer a "as big as a reasonable person could want" package. For a household that wants to backup some phones and PCs and the family photo album, you can offer 5-10TB of storage and they'll never fill it up. But eventually you know that a handful of power users are going to abuse the system to the point that you have to stop.

ytjohn 9y ago
I like how Google did their storage. They started off with a something that was (at the time) insane amount of storage for email, like 1GB. Then they slowly increased that over time as storage costs decreased. It was never unlimited, but it seemed unlimited compared to their competitors, who were often at 1/10th or even 1/100th the space. Granted that's more difficult to do today as more players have embraced the concept. Google Photos (formerly Picasa) came out with unlimited storage for photos, and Amazon Cloud Drive is a response to that. ACD still offers unlimited photos, but they should never have tried offering unlimited "other files" storage. They have been doing cloud storage to technically adept people for years. I don't know why they thought they could offer a rather similar service, mark it as unlimited, and not expect people to use the cheap unlimited option over their per-use pricing plan.
fapjacks 9y ago
But I say that they're not "abusing" the system as long as the company is offering "unlimited" service. They're actually not offering "unlimited" service, so it's the companies that are abusing the buyers, not the other way around. If companies offered like you said, a "large enough" package with some limit, instead of "unlimited", then I would absolutely agree that they're abusing the system.

williamle8300 9y ago

Yup. Totally agreed. But duuuude. How much did you pay for that domain?! NOICE.

jasonsync 9y ago
Back in 2013 we originally launched with the domain name "Sync.us" (we didn't have a choice, the .com was taken). Instant regret, as it made branding difficult, and our marketing efforts simply drove traffic to the many, more recognizable sync branded TLDs. Then a few months later, one of our team members inadvertently visited Sync.com (a common Freudian domain name slip for all of us), and discovered the domain was up for auction. Instead of subsidizing our storage, like most of our competition was doing at the time, we diverted a substantial portion of our marketing budget towards winning the auction ;-) It wasn't cheap.

hbosch 9y ago

The trouble here is, I think, "unlimited" tends to just mean "a lot" and for Average Joe that's fine. If you go to an all-you-can eat buffet, you will eventually be unwelcome after you have 20 plates stacked on your table. Is that a business problem or a customer abuse problem? The ugly fact is the Unlimited Amazon Drive has been abused by media pirates and data-hoarders to store up to 20TB (and sometimes more) at what any reasonable person would say is an unreasonable cost. Not to mention, much of this media is accessed and streamed often. Wander over to /r/PlexShares to get an idea: imagine if someone had 20TB of 4K and BluRay movies stored on your service @ a very generous $60/yr, streaming that data 24/7 to 10, 15, maybe 20 people via Plex (with each streamer paying the media manager $10 a month) all over the world. While torrenting all day. Suddenly that sounds more like abuse IMO. Of course, I agree that you shouldn't call something "Unlimited" if it isn't. But it's not a one-sided issue and I thought I'd bring that up. I don't personally know anyone, in real life, who uses Amazon Drive. Most people don't even know it exists. The only time I see it discussed, especially the "unlimited" tier, is on /r/datahoarders and /r/seedboxes as an exploitable deal. As far as I can tell, Prime Photos will remain unlimited. I wonder how long it'll be before media hoarders hide their content in Google/Prime Photos with a convenient CLI tool?

Taek 9y ago
I have seen ACD accounts storing more than 1000 TB of data (mostly collected by scraping porn sites) for a mere $60 a year. If you offer unlimited, expect people to take advantage.
mrighele 9y ago
> The ugly fact is the Unlimited Amazon Drive has been abused by media pirates and data-hoarders to store up to 20TB Somebody on reddit bragged about reaching more than 1PB [0] > Of course, I agree that you shouldn't call something "Unlimited" if it isn't. I am maybe nitpicking, but it really was unlimited. Nobody is being billed for exceeding a given threshold or stopped from using it. The service is being discontinued and people will not be able to renew it. They never said "forever" :-). It's like I got a special deal from my gym for unlimited access. If next year they won't offer it anymore I cannot say "it was not unlimited". > As far as I can tell, Prime Photos will remain unlimited. I wonder how long it'll be before media hoarders hide their content in Google/Prime Photos with a convenient CLI tool? In another thread on reddit somebody was already talking about that, so I guess it won't be long. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/5s7q04/i_hit_a_bit_of_a_milestone_today/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/5s7q04/i_hit_a...

ballenf 9y ago

I disagree on the effect this has on consumers. I am a paying customer of several cloud storage services, 2 of which you mention. The effect on me of the temporary unlimited tiers is that I get to know my data usage requirements for a while before I have to choose a tier. It's really a very welcome intro to cloud storage. I can easily see that even with truly unlimited storage I only used xxGB and therefore can choose the appropriate tier with confidence that my costs won't jump. One surprise about these unlimited deals is that I'd rather pay Apple for photo storage than use a third-party service that is free (or included in Prime, e.g.). I tried multiple free photo storage services, but the convenience of Apple's offering far outweighs the cost saving. If you want unlimited cloud storage the G Suite $10 / month plan is still unlimited. (Actually it says 2 PB in Google Photos when backing up original size photos & videos.)

WhitneyLand 9y ago

You forgot one more reason this is crappy behavior. It unfairly crowds out startups who want to go with a sustainable business model from the outset. I realize "fairness" is not an excuse for inability to compete with the marketing of other companies. But if a company wants to test customer appetite for a service with pricing that is upfront honest, stable, and bound to only get better over time, there's never enough time to give it a proper shot.

StillBored 9y ago
This is just the technical equivalent of dumping or subsidizing, and has become fairly common in quite a number of industries to keep out competitors. The complete lack of regulation enforcement has been a problem for at least the last 40 years. To me it also seems to be a hallmark of the SV venture capital scene, where the majority of the capital isn't used to build a better product but to flood the market for a few years to gain a controlling share.

blazespin 9y ago

"unlimited" is such a stupid word. TANSTAAFL. There should be an advertising law against the word "unlimited".

Semaphor 9y ago

FWIW, backblaze still has unlimited storage. Of course it's cold storage, so abusing that is harder.

yuhong 9y ago

I found out about OneDrive for Business which on some plans lets you bump up beyond 5TB by calling support. I wonder how that works.