6 ms·

It would be really nice if Microsoft kept some of their products in a consistent working, high-quality state. As a long-term OneDrive (SkyDrive, Windows Live M

by nxc18 9y ago

It would be really nice if Microsoft kept some of their products in a consistent working, high-quality state. As a long-term OneDrive (SkyDrive, Windows Live Mesh, FolderShare) user, it has been really disappointing to see features come, go, then come back. I can't upgrade operating systems or even update the app without fear of losing critical features. For example, being able to transparently access networked (not locally downloaded) files used to be super easy, then it went away, and is now apparently coming back. Similarly, Windows Live Mesh had really good versioning, a really useful remote access service, and really cool collaboration tools. Then it went away and has never been replaced. OneDrive used to have 25Gb storage for free; that was a really good deal. Then it went to unlimited storage for Office users, but then they stopped that for no good reason. tl;dr I'm not going to be a OneDrive customer for much longer. Microsoft makes it really hard to be a fan of their products. :(

pirocks 9y ago
There was abuse of the "unlimited storage", by the data hoarder subreddit. This gives yopu an idea of how much they stretch the definition of "unlimited":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...
- simlevesque 9y ago
  > stretch the definition of "unlimited" You can't stretch the definition of unlimited. There is literaly no amount that would stretch it. If you advertise unlimited storage, you are bending the truth, since there is no such thing as unlimited disk space. I don't see how anyone can blame the data hoarders here. Where I live, if you advertise for something that you cannot deliver, it's called fraud and you can get sued for it. I just don't see why they feel the need to lie to customers like that.
  - Steko 9y ago
    I blame them just like most of the other data hoarders are blaming them. One or two guys shit in the pool and got the whole thing canned. You can certainly qualify unlimited service for reasonable use.
    - forgottenpass 9y ago
      You can certainly qualify unlimited service for reasonable use. No, you can't. Because reasonable is a subjective moving target. There are maybe a handful of organizations outside of Microsoft that have a non-laughable chance of estimating A) cost of online storage to microsoft B) number of users C) distribution of storage used by their userbase D) cost of bandwidth E) typical bandwidth profile of users F) how much money Microsoft is willing to spend on storage as a loss leader. And then there is the un-estimateable wildcard: G) what number will "sound too big" to sysadmins and/or PMs once they see it on their metrics dashboard. "Unlimited" is a scam to avoid vocalizing the secret maximum and hoping that users have more conservative estimates of the secret maximum than it's actual value. And there is a huge incentive for users to guess conservativly at the maximum, because as soon as one person doesn't everyone else will blame them for "shitting in the pool and getting the whole thing canned"
      - Steko 9y ago
        > No, you can't. Because reasonable is a subjective moving target. I don't think that matters. > "Unlimited" is a scam Baloney, everyone knows you can't actually get a million dollars of storage for $5/month just like the people at buffets know you can't just scrape $1K of food into the trash without the buffet getting shut down. There's always reasonable use limits on "unlimited" that any customer is aware of. I have unlimited checking and it's not a scam but there are obvious limits, if I wrote a million checks for 1 cent they would either close my account or change the terms. Writing a million checks is not a reasonable use case though, that would be me shitting in the pool.
        michaelmrose 9y ago
        Why should we accept imprecise nonsense just to provide companies with a marketing opportunity. Unlimited SOUNDS better than any given number because it says you wont have to worry about usage. If you said 5TB of usage this might have the same connotations for most users however it doesn't communicate this fact as well. However once you start playing games with language. Saying one thing in large print and the exact opposite in the fine print or depending on what different people think is reasonable it becomes harder to define what is permissible.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    It is unlimited if they can add capacity faster than you can upload data (which is true in this instance).
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      It can also be unlimited if the host limits the upload rate, such that the more data uploaded the slower the rate. Reasonable usage won't be affected, just the outliers.
      - crottypeter 9y ago
        Doesn't sound very 'unlimited'
        mrkrab 9y ago
        It would be. It's unlimited space, not unlimited bandwidth to put things in that space.
        glenneroo 9y ago
        I feel that's what CrashPlan does, over the last few years I've rarely gotten over 500 KB/s upstream, although with my LTE router I regularly get 4-5 MB/s.
        WalterBright 9y ago
        As long as the integral of rate limiter tends to infinity, rather than something less, the storage is unlimited. It is not relevant how long it takes to get there.
  - Shendare 9y ago
    But how literal to the definition do you go before you cease to be reasonably practical? "Unlimited" is an abstract absolute concept. Nothing in existence can ever be unlimited, looking out to, say, the heat death of the universe. In the end, it's a marketing term meaning "we don't arbitrarily set a numeric limit like 50GB", not that it can never possibly under any circumstances run into any kind of physical or practical limit.
    - revmoo 9y ago
      Then don't use the word lmao
  - justin66 9y ago
    > Where I live, if you advertise for something that you cannot deliver, it's called fraud and you can get sued for it. Where do you live, and how was OneDrive advertised there? Just curious.
    - simlevesque 9y ago
      Canada. You could sue but I'm not sure you'd win since IANAL.
contextfree 9y ago
The underlying reason is that it keeps getting reorg'd into different divisions with different business models
mel919 9y ago
I highly recommend dropping it. Switching to a reliable cloud storage from OneDrive is an amazing experience until you reflect on time wasted trying to make 1drv work or waiting for it to start working properly. OneDrive and Dropbox have been totally opposite experiences to me, heaven and hell. Also after more than a year with OneDrive I passionately despise it. It truly is Internet Explorer of cloud storages.
oval-atom 9y ago
They did at one time offer UNLIMITED! Nothing but “Bait~n~Switch”. Any business that offers “UNLIMITED” anything that incurs costs has: 1. planned an exit excuse: “It was being “ABUSED”, or 2. does not mind going out of business. They said people were abusing the "UNLIMITED" to justify lowering the allowed storage limit in order to start charging. So for Outlook.com they lowered it to 15 GB, why not say 500 GB? Because it would not generate the revenue stream they could have at lower storage limits. Then they prompted you to either signup to keep it at 15 GB, or if you missed the deadline, it will go back to 5 GB. What is in the future? Be prepared when using their apps, it won't be long, and it is already happening, that the only place you can store your files that you create is on their cloud space. So be prepared if you need your data when say you are on vacation out in the boondocks! It happened! Remember their corporate motto, “cloud first, mobile first,…………. Consumer last (ad lib)”! “Your Data Belongs to U$!”
- deadbunny 9y ago
  1. Offer an unlimited server 2. Work median usage per customer 3. Set new limit below median 4. Profit
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    *Set new limit at median Now you don't have to deal with r/datahorder users.
simias 9y ago
>I can't upgrade operating systems or even update the app without fear of losing critical features. I don't use Windows a lot myself but you're not the first person I hear voicing this concern and postponing updates to avoid risking breaking something critical. This is a very bad precedent for Microsoft to set. At least it'll keep the ransomware and antivirus devs busy.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  > This is a very bad precedent for Microsoft to set. Such a surprise they started just forcing upgrades..
tomw2005 9y ago
> Then it went to unlimited storage for Office users, but then they stopped that for no good reason. That was brief and sadly disappeared. However OD is still cheaper than DropBox for 1TB of storage and comes with Office. I'd still mark that as a pretty good deal since most people are required to have Office around.
sitepodmatt 9y ago
I remember livemesh 8yrs ago?, it was going to be the future with its own ecosystem and all these other glorious promises, unfortunately its sync often deleted files and sometimes sync would hang for days. Everyone I know moved to dropbox at this point and most* havent looked back (*Im not a dropbox user).
- glenneroo 9y ago
  Same thing with Streamload.. but they actually lost user's data.. then renamed the company.. and then it went bankrupt. I can say the say thing about moving to CrashPlan (also offering unlimited) and not having looked back. 8TB accumulated over the last 4 years and counting.
ConceptJunkie 9y ago
Well, Google is winning in a lot of areas that Microsoft used to dominate... so they are just trying to imitate their rival. However, a better imitation might be to suddenly discontinue the product without warning.
fgonzag 9y ago
I'm a big fan of Spideroak Hive.I mostly use it to sync my work files (everything except source code) between my desktop and laptop. I really like the fact that the files are encrypted and according to them can't be retrieved without my password. Sync.net is a similiar service that has a better UX but sadly doesn't have a way to ignore specific patterns, which I need to certain directories.

by nxc18 9y ago

pirocks 9y ago

There was abuse of the "unlimited storage", by the data hoarder subreddit. This gives yopu an idea of how much they stretch the definition of "unlimited":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...

simlevesque 9y ago
> stretch the definition of "unlimited" You can't stretch the definition of unlimited. There is literaly no amount that would stretch it. If you advertise unlimited storage, you are bending the truth, since there is no such thing as unlimited disk space. I don't see how anyone can blame the data hoarders here. Where I live, if you advertise for something that you cannot deliver, it's called fraud and you can get sued for it. I just don't see why they feel the need to lie to customers like that.
- Steko 9y ago
  I blame them just like most of the other data hoarders are blaming them. One or two guys shit in the pool and got the whole thing canned. You can certainly qualify unlimited service for reasonable use.
  - forgottenpass 9y ago
    You can certainly qualify unlimited service for reasonable use. No, you can't. Because reasonable is a subjective moving target. There are maybe a handful of organizations outside of Microsoft that have a non-laughable chance of estimating A) cost of online storage to microsoft B) number of users C) distribution of storage used by their userbase D) cost of bandwidth E) typical bandwidth profile of users F) how much money Microsoft is willing to spend on storage as a loss leader. And then there is the un-estimateable wildcard: G) what number will "sound too big" to sysadmins and/or PMs once they see it on their metrics dashboard. "Unlimited" is a scam to avoid vocalizing the secret maximum and hoping that users have more conservative estimates of the secret maximum than it's actual value. And there is a huge incentive for users to guess conservativly at the maximum, because as soon as one person doesn't everyone else will blame them for "shitting in the pool and getting the whole thing canned"
    - Steko 9y ago
      > No, you can't. Because reasonable is a subjective moving target. I don't think that matters. > "Unlimited" is a scam Baloney, everyone knows you can't actually get a million dollars of storage for $5/month just like the people at buffets know you can't just scrape $1K of food into the trash without the buffet getting shut down. There's always reasonable use limits on "unlimited" that any customer is aware of. I have unlimited checking and it's not a scam but there are obvious limits, if I wrote a million checks for 1 cent they would either close my account or change the terms. Writing a million checks is not a reasonable use case though, that would be me shitting in the pool.
      - michaelmrose 9y ago
        Why should we accept imprecise nonsense just to provide companies with a marketing opportunity. Unlimited SOUNDS better than any given number because it says you wont have to worry about usage. If you said 5TB of usage this might have the same connotations for most users however it doesn't communicate this fact as well. However once you start playing games with language. Saying one thing in large print and the exact opposite in the fine print or depending on what different people think is reasonable it becomes harder to define what is permissible.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  It is unlimited if they can add capacity faster than you can upload data (which is true in this instance).
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    It can also be unlimited if the host limits the upload rate, such that the more data uploaded the slower the rate. Reasonable usage won't be affected, just the outliers.
    - crottypeter 9y ago
      Doesn't sound very 'unlimited'
      - mrkrab 9y ago
        It would be. It's unlimited space, not unlimited bandwidth to put things in that space.
        glenneroo 9y ago
        I feel that's what CrashPlan does, over the last few years I've rarely gotten over 500 KB/s upstream, although with my LTE router I regularly get 4-5 MB/s.
      - WalterBright 9y ago
        As long as the integral of rate limiter tends to infinity, rather than something less, the storage is unlimited. It is not relevant how long it takes to get there.
- Shendare 9y ago
  But how literal to the definition do you go before you cease to be reasonably practical? "Unlimited" is an abstract absolute concept. Nothing in existence can ever be unlimited, looking out to, say, the heat death of the universe. In the end, it's a marketing term meaning "we don't arbitrarily set a numeric limit like 50GB", not that it can never possibly under any circumstances run into any kind of physical or practical limit.
  - revmoo 9y ago
    Then don't use the word lmao
- justin66 9y ago
  > Where I live, if you advertise for something that you cannot deliver, it's called fraud and you can get sued for it. Where do you live, and how was OneDrive advertised there? Just curious.
  - simlevesque 9y ago
    Canada. You could sue but I'm not sure you'd win since IANAL.

contextfree 9y ago

The underlying reason is that it keeps getting reorg'd into different divisions with different business models

mel919 9y ago

I highly recommend dropping it. Switching to a reliable cloud storage from OneDrive is an amazing experience until you reflect on time wasted trying to make 1drv work or waiting for it to start working properly. OneDrive and Dropbox have been totally opposite experiences to me, heaven and hell. Also after more than a year with OneDrive I passionately despise it. It truly is Internet Explorer of cloud storages.

oval-atom 9y ago

They did at one time offer UNLIMITED! Nothing but “Bait~n~Switch”. Any business that offers “UNLIMITED” anything that incurs costs has: 1. planned an exit excuse: “It was being “ABUSED”, or 2. does not mind going out of business. They said people were abusing the "UNLIMITED" to justify lowering the allowed storage limit in order to start charging. So for Outlook.com they lowered it to 15 GB, why not say 500 GB? Because it would not generate the revenue stream they could have at lower storage limits. Then they prompted you to either signup to keep it at 15 GB, or if you missed the deadline, it will go back to 5 GB. What is in the future? Be prepared when using their apps, it won't be long, and it is already happening, that the only place you can store your files that you create is on their cloud space. So be prepared if you need your data when say you are on vacation out in the boondocks! It happened! Remember their corporate motto, “cloud first, mobile first,…………. Consumer last (ad lib)”! “Your Data Belongs to U$!”

deadbunny 9y ago
1. Offer an unlimited server 2. Work median usage per customer 3. Set new limit below median 4. Profit
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  *Set new limit at median Now you don't have to deal with r/datahorder users.

simias 9y ago

>I can't upgrade operating systems or even update the app without fear of losing critical features. I don't use Windows a lot myself but you're not the first person I hear voicing this concern and postponing updates to avoid risking breaking something critical. This is a very bad precedent for Microsoft to set. At least it'll keep the ransomware and antivirus devs busy.

tinus_hn 9y ago
> This is a very bad precedent for Microsoft to set. Such a surprise they started just forcing upgrades..

tomw2005 9y ago

> Then it went to unlimited storage for Office users, but then they stopped that for no good reason. That was brief and sadly disappeared. However OD is still cheaper than DropBox for 1TB of storage and comes with Office. I'd still mark that as a pretty good deal since most people are required to have Office around.

sitepodmatt 9y ago

I remember livemesh 8yrs ago?, it was going to be the future with its own ecosystem and all these other glorious promises, unfortunately its sync often deleted files and sometimes sync would hang for days. Everyone I know moved to dropbox at this point and most* havent looked back (*Im not a dropbox user).

glenneroo 9y ago
Same thing with Streamload.. but they actually lost user's data.. then renamed the company.. and then it went bankrupt. I can say the say thing about moving to CrashPlan (also offering unlimited) and not having looked back. 8TB accumulated over the last 4 years and counting.

ConceptJunkie 9y ago

Well, Google is winning in a lot of areas that Microsoft used to dominate... so they are just trying to imitate their rival. However, a better imitation might be to suddenly discontinue the product without warning.

fgonzag 9y ago

I'm a big fan of Spideroak Hive.I mostly use it to sync my work files (everything except source code) between my desktop and laptop. I really like the fact that the files are encrypted and according to them can't be retrieved without my password. Sync.net is a similiar service that has a better UX but sadly doesn't have a way to ignore specific patterns, which I need to certain directories.