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I use Backblaze for company/personal (which is kind of blurred when you work from home and own the company) Macs, along with local TM backups. For servers, jus

I use Backblaze for company/personal (which is kind of blurred when you work from home and own the company) Macs, along with local TM backups. For servers, just something rsyncable - rsync.net lately.

rochak 7y ago
Oh, I didn't know about rsync.net. They seem pretty nice.
demygale 7y ago
I used Backblaze for a few years. Not a bad service, but the dark patterns around cancelling were really sketchy. Turned me off to the company. Avoid them if you can. Anyone willing to use UI tricks to keep you as as customer can’t be trusted and what’s the point of a backup if you can’t trust it.
- stephenr 7y ago
  .... Care to elaborate a little?
  - demygale 7y ago
    Sure. So I go to cancel my account. Not unhappy with the service, just trying to save some money. Recurring subscriptions start to add up. No cancel button. Read the online documentation. To cancel you have to delete all your computers from your profile which deletes the underlying backups. The yearly charge will be authorized in the days before your subscription expires “so there’s no interruption in service.” But you can’t tell them you want to cancel without deleting all your backups and you don’t know when the charge is going to renew. So in order to use you’re full subscription you’ll need to set an alarm to cancel on that day, and then go ask for a refund because they’ve already charged you for the next year. It’s an intentional dark pattern to make cancelling difficult.
    - stephenr 7y ago
      Ok I was expecting some kind of LinkedIn/Facebook style "this delete my account button doesn't actually delete my account" bullshittery. Your explanation sounds like their process is slightly less intuitive than it could be. I'm not overly impressed that they auto-increase business licenses if a "new" computer is detected, but their response to fix the issue was prompt, so I'm generally willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

rochak 7y ago

Oh, I didn't know about rsync.net. They seem pretty nice.

demygale 7y ago

I used Backblaze for a few years. Not a bad service, but the dark patterns around cancelling were really sketchy. Turned me off to the company. Avoid them if you can. Anyone willing to use UI tricks to keep you as as customer can’t be trusted and what’s the point of a backup if you can’t trust it.

stephenr 7y ago
.... Care to elaborate a little?
- demygale 7y ago
  Sure. So I go to cancel my account. Not unhappy with the service, just trying to save some money. Recurring subscriptions start to add up. No cancel button. Read the online documentation. To cancel you have to delete all your computers from your profile which deletes the underlying backups. The yearly charge will be authorized in the days before your subscription expires “so there’s no interruption in service.” But you can’t tell them you want to cancel without deleting all your backups and you don’t know when the charge is going to renew. So in order to use you’re full subscription you’ll need to set an alarm to cancel on that day, and then go ask for a refund because they’ve already charged you for the next year. It’s an intentional dark pattern to make cancelling difficult.
  - stephenr 7y ago
    Ok I was expecting some kind of LinkedIn/Facebook style "this delete my account button doesn't actually delete my account" bullshittery. Your explanation sounds like their process is slightly less intuitive than it could be. I'm not overly impressed that they auto-increase business licenses if a "new" computer is detected, but their response to fix the issue was prompt, so I'm generally willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.