4 ms·

Marketing wise, it's better for the business to market with "unlimited" than creating a limit, even if it won't affect 90% of the users. For users, it creates a

by est31 6y ago

Marketing wise, it's better for the business to market with "unlimited" than creating a limit, even if it won't affect 90% of the users. For users, it creates a different feeling of freedom, even if you never use that freedom.

imtringued 6y ago
If you still want to play that game then restrict the service in other ways. You could for example throttle user upload to 10mbit/s if they have uploaded more than 500GB per month. That way no single user can practically upload more than 3.5TB per month. The 2 petabyte abuse scenario would have been avoided while still being able to brag about some users storing 50TB of data on your platform.
- pontus 6y ago
  A side note on this: I always wondered when there'll be a lawsuit to this effect (the thing that originally prompted this thought was one of the carrier networks throttling download speed after some amount of data). In the extreme case, suppose you halve the upload speed after each chunk of size x. Then the amount of time to upload n*x amount of data will be 1+2+4+8+...+2^(n-1) units of time, which obviously diverges. As such, it's not unlimited storage even in theory. I know this is the point of such approaches, but I'm curious why there aren't more lawsuits to this effect. Similarly when you get e.g. 10GB of data on cellular networks and are charged for each subsequent block, there's really no way to use your 10GB. You either have to stop just before you hit the limit, leaving some data on the table or you have to go over and pay for another block. Ideally the networks should use up all the data and then ask you if you want to purchase another block. Otherwise there's no way you can actually use exactly what you ostensibly pay for.
  - _flux 6y ago
    I think you missed that the speed limit would affect uploads after transferring 500G _per month_, not total? So in a year you would be able to store 6 terabytes. This would probably work out fine, because e.g. typical use of cloud storage is probably backups, and the first uploads are the largest. I think some networks have operated in the way you want: you get full speed to some specified limit, and after that you are throttled (significantly). That works out fine to use the complete limit. On the other hand if you do want to use 15G, it's easier to do, when the block gets charged automatically. I think it would be very hard to have a lawsuit about this if the contract includes these details.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      You're still calling it unlimited while placing a limit. You've been clever about how you impose the limit, but it's still there.
      - selectodude 6y ago
        Unlimited storage means just that. They never said infinite inbound data transfer speeds. "If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable.
        salawat 6y ago
        >"If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable." No it isn't. On the one hand you say we'll store it if you can get it to us, then on the other you build an obstruction to data getting to you. Data propagation is part of storage. I have to get bits off my processor, to your physical media to be stored, and you just built a barrier to keep that from happening. You don't get to use "unlimited" for marketing attractiveness, then bait-and-switch. So maybe to you it sounds reasonable, but to anyone that values being up front about the service they are offering, that's nothing more than selling a product you can't deliver, i.e., deception and false advertising.
        selectodude 6y ago
        I have unlimited data transfer on my home internet connection. Is my ISP pulling a "bait and switch" because my internet bandwidth isn't also unlimited? Ignoring the whole "physically impossible" thing, of course. The entire universe is a bait and switch using that sort of logic.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        If the provider deliberately reduced speeds to ensure that you would never be able to get past a certain amount, then it's a cap. A naturally occurring limit wouldn't bother me, but that's not what we're discussing here.
  - zeroonetwothree 6y ago
    It’s still a finite time to upload for any given data size. It’s not like uploads have infinite bandwidth in the absence of these limits.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    There are networks that let you do that. GiffGaff in the UK is one. They're even fairly generous in giving you a couple of extra GB for free if you only go over occasionally.
aij 6y ago
Of course it's better marketing wise to market your products/offerings/capabilities as better than they actually are. Even if 90% of users don't notice the difference, it really shouldn't be surprising that some small fraction of users will notice and will be unhappy.

by est31 6y ago

imtringued 6y ago

If you still want to play that game then restrict the service in other ways. You could for example throttle user upload to 10mbit/s if they have uploaded more than 500GB per month. That way no single user can practically upload more than 3.5TB per month. The 2 petabyte abuse scenario would have been avoided while still being able to brag about some users storing 50TB of data on your platform.

pontus 6y ago
A side note on this: I always wondered when there'll be a lawsuit to this effect (the thing that originally prompted this thought was one of the carrier networks throttling download speed after some amount of data). In the extreme case, suppose you halve the upload speed after each chunk of size x. Then the amount of time to upload n*x amount of data will be 1+2+4+8+...+2^(n-1) units of time, which obviously diverges. As such, it's not unlimited storage even in theory. I know this is the point of such approaches, but I'm curious why there aren't more lawsuits to this effect. Similarly when you get e.g. 10GB of data on cellular networks and are charged for each subsequent block, there's really no way to use your 10GB. You either have to stop just before you hit the limit, leaving some data on the table or you have to go over and pay for another block. Ideally the networks should use up all the data and then ask you if you want to purchase another block. Otherwise there's no way you can actually use exactly what you ostensibly pay for.
- _flux 6y ago
  I think you missed that the speed limit would affect uploads after transferring 500G _per month_, not total? So in a year you would be able to store 6 terabytes. This would probably work out fine, because e.g. typical use of cloud storage is probably backups, and the first uploads are the largest. I think some networks have operated in the way you want: you get full speed to some specified limit, and after that you are throttled (significantly). That works out fine to use the complete limit. On the other hand if you do want to use 15G, it's easier to do, when the block gets charged automatically. I think it would be very hard to have a lawsuit about this if the contract includes these details.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    You're still calling it unlimited while placing a limit. You've been clever about how you impose the limit, but it's still there.
    - selectodude 6y ago
      Unlimited storage means just that. They never said infinite inbound data transfer speeds. "If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable.
      - salawat 6y ago
        >"If you can get it to us, we'll store it" is totally reasonable." No it isn't. On the one hand you say we'll store it if you can get it to us, then on the other you build an obstruction to data getting to you. Data propagation is part of storage. I have to get bits off my processor, to your physical media to be stored, and you just built a barrier to keep that from happening. You don't get to use "unlimited" for marketing attractiveness, then bait-and-switch. So maybe to you it sounds reasonable, but to anyone that values being up front about the service they are offering, that's nothing more than selling a product you can't deliver, i.e., deception and false advertising.
        selectodude 6y ago
        I have unlimited data transfer on my home internet connection. Is my ISP pulling a "bait and switch" because my internet bandwidth isn't also unlimited? Ignoring the whole "physically impossible" thing, of course. The entire universe is a bait and switch using that sort of logic.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        If the provider deliberately reduced speeds to ensure that you would never be able to get past a certain amount, then it's a cap. A naturally occurring limit wouldn't bother me, but that's not what we're discussing here.
- zeroonetwothree 6y ago
  It’s still a finite time to upload for any given data size. It’s not like uploads have infinite bandwidth in the absence of these limits.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  There are networks that let you do that. GiffGaff in the UK is one. They're even fairly generous in giving you a couple of extra GB for free if you only go over occasionally.

aij 6y ago

Of course it's better marketing wise to market your products/offerings/capabilities as better than they actually are. Even if 90% of users don't notice the difference, it really shouldn't be surprising that some small fraction of users will notice and will be unhappy.