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I'm confused here. How does a threat of deleting your data in less than 7 days and not even canceling your billing makes you a loyal customer? That seems quite

I'm confused here. How does a threat of deleting your data in less than 7 days and not even canceling your billing makes you a loyal customer? That seems quite awful, miss the email and your data is gone, and you end up paying without them even storing any data.

robbiemitchell 5y ago
I already had other (newer) computers being backed up, and this was a courtesy email to tell me I had failed to stop paying for monthly backups for a computer I had not opened (and thus synced) for years. He emailed me because the version running on that computer was considered so unstable as to be unreliable. Yes, they could have proactively canceled my bill. Maybe they would have! We'll never know, because I responded to this email right away. He responded to my questions in a lengthy email, which I'll paste again here because I had the foresight to ask in advance for future permission to post publicly. === Hi Robbie, thanks for getting back to me! It's hard getting through the email marketing overload. :-) > Would you be amenable to holding off on deleting the backup > for two weeks (instead of one) No worries, the most important part is that you are aware the computer is no longer actually performing fresh backups of new data. We can wait a while. > would you mind if I published your email publicly? Go ahead, and one of our marketing guys (Yev) already saw your tweet go by, it made everybody in our office laugh too. I'm off in my corner watching logs and emailing the random old customer, they didn't know I do this. :-) One of the things I've been amazed at doing backup software is how many assumptions I made at the start that aren't true and the MODERN Backblaze software works around: 1) assumption: your disk on your laptop will reliably store bytes or fail. Wrong, it can throw random bits, undetected unless Backblaze keeps its own parallel check sums. 2) assumption: laptop RAM works reliably. Wrong, I think there is a reason servers run ECC RAM, and I'm confused why many laptops choose not to. I guess saving $5 is more important than data Integrity? 3) assumption: the HTTP posts either work or fail. Wrong: WAY MORE OFTEN than the file system are undetected silent data corruption. Solution: client end to end SHA hashes. 4) assumption: customers are sane and won't "edit" the Backblaze internal data structures sitting on the customer's laptop. Nope! If customers are computer beginners they tend to behave nicely, and the most advanced customers are very careful, but there is this crazy middle ground who know enough to be dangerous to themselves. :-) I really really think that the most modern version of Backblaze (2.3.1 and later) is quite stable and might run flawlessly for a decade on a computer, but some of those early versions like anything starting with a 1.0 or 1.5 scare me because there are too many assumptions in them, not paranoid enough. Yes, the old versions WILL WORK for 99 percent of customers, but at our customer numbers that means every day we have to explain why a restore failed to some poor guy who chose to edit his Backblaze data structures corrupting his own backup and we didn't detect it soon enough. Our most recent client versions are deeply, profoundly paranoid software that basically assumes your laptop is right smack dab in the middle of melting down, throwing disk and RAM errors as an insane laptop owner not only ignores the warning signs of impending data Armageddon, but fights with Backblaze trying to defeat it from backing up because the customer is worried Backblaze is "wasting his bandwidth". I feel good about this, it's like my whole career was training up to write this incredibly important piece of software. -- Brian Wilson. CTO Backblaze brianw@backblaze.com
- throw6622 5y ago
  What a fantastic response!
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Geez, this guy really is a genius.
- jmspring 5y ago
  I recall chatting with Brian when we started Zetta. It wasn’t a match in terms of tech/direction, but I’ve been a loyal customer as well for years.
- brianwski 5y ago
  Hey Robbie- I am touched you saved my email and remembered me, and that at the time you didn't respond negatively to the message. Thank you for being a customer. The only thing I regret is that comment about version number of 2.3.1 and the claim that it would run flawlessly for a decade. Oh geez, please upgrade to 8.0.1, you won't regret it. -- Brian Wilson, CTO Backblaze, brianw@backblaze.com
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    But what about the part where you said you were going to delete their files in a week? I don’t understand why someone would say that.
  - argc 5y ago
    This conversation makes me think you care about your users and inspired me to go look at pricing for personal laptop backup, and it appears that linux is not supported. Any plans to support it in the future? EDIT I might have not looked hard enough and there are potentially options out there, I just found https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-How-does-Backblaze-support-Linux-Users- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-How-d...
    - teraflop 5y ago
      For many years, they were consistently and very diplomatically saying that they had no plans to offer Backblaze Personal Backup to Linux users, because Linux users would use a disproportionately large amount of storage and it wouldn't make sense to offer them a flat-rate alternative to the pay-per-GB B2 option. e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/jsrqoz/personal_backup_linux/gc1peyh/ https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/jsrqoz/personal_... It seems that they may be changing their tune, at least as of a few months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/m3xynu/backblaze_on_linux_yet_again/ https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/m3xynu/backblaze...
pxx 5y ago
Yeah, this is awful. I don't understand why they would also delete the data from that machine even if new data weren't flowing. What if you had needed the data from years ago? Isn't that part of the whole point of backup??
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Yea, that email made no sense to me. It read as 1) You are paying for a backup service. 2) We decided that the version of your software is too old, even though it backed-up data. 3) Since you are a valued customer, we will delete your data. 4) We are a HAPPY company! Have a great day!
- treesknees 5y ago
  That's actually not the whole point of a backup in this context. It's important to remember that the Backblaze Personal Backup service is essentially an emergency extra copy, not a data archive. Once the client backs up a file (or more accurately a revision of a file), it checks every 30 days that the file still exists locally. If it does not, then it will be deleted from the cloud backup. For example if you plug in an external harddrive and back it up with Backblaze, if you don't plug it in at least once every 30 days, then its cloud copy is deleted. So no, the intention of Backblaze is not to keep your offline machine from several years ago securely backed up. That being said, you can pay for unlimited revisions which just stores your data in b2 and you pay per month on the extra storage. In that case then yes I would expect the data from years ago to still be present. But that's a recent addition, and not what the OP was using.
  - roland-s 5y ago
    Backups are deleted after six months not 30 days. 30 days is the default revision history kept for each file. Point still stands though. source: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-happens-to-my-backups-when-I-m-away-or-on-vacation- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-...
  - pxx 5y ago
    That might not be the _intention_ but surely backblaze doesn't just delete the entire contents of your account if your computer goes entirely offline for a month? Suppose my house catches on fire. I might not immediately get around to booting all of my computers again (in fact, it might be months until I have the same set of computers again), but I sure don't expect Backblaze to just start deleting files even while I'm paying them! Importantly they had the _choice_ to delete this data. Note that the email seems to indicate that the sender will personally delete the backup in a week.
max46 5y ago
the answer is simple... either it's an employee for the marketing department who can turn anything into a positive or it's a fanboy. The page long responses that starts with textbook marketing BS ("No worries, the most important..") tells me it's from an employee because no one cares that much and actively wants people to lose data faster. The amount of buzzwords in his other response... ffs how can you guys seriously think that it's just a normal person who likes the service?! you should know better.
- bloqs 5y ago
  Brian has now responded in the same thread
- robbiemitchell 5y ago
  Hmm. I am indeed just a normal person who likes the software. Backblaze + Dropbox have saved me multiple times.
kottaram 5y ago
The CTO just said the truth. How else would he say that the customer's data will be deleted? Sure it was straight up blunt, but I think he was just speaking casually.
- olalonde 5y ago
  I am very confused by the email, especially the second point. I've never used Backblaze so maybe I'm missing some critical information. To me, it sounds like Backblaze was happily keeping a backup for a paying customer until said customer booted their laptop. They then threaten to delete the backup if customer doesn't update their software. I understand about warning that the software no longer works but why threaten to delete the backup?
  - kjaftaedi 5y ago
    Likely some sort of encryption/privacy issues. Since the software version no longer works, they wouldn't be able to do a restore anyway. Keeping their old data on the live servers longer could be a liability. (just a guess, but i imagine it's something along these lines)
    - chalupa-man 5y ago
      > they wouldn't be able to do a restore anyway. The Backblaze software doesn't handle restores, it just backs things up. To restore, you download zip files of selected folders from the website.
      - treesknees 5y ago
        They also offer a separate app for performing downloads/restores https://www.backblaze.com/help-backblaze-downloader-win.html https://www.backblaze.com/help-backblaze-downloader-win.html
  - koheripbal 5y ago
    My guess is that this one installation was causing a broader production issue. I agree that a better solution would have been to remove the backup to a secondary system that the client could later access if needed. Deleting in 7 days is unreasonable.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
This is a very Backblaze Personal Backup fan thingie. Some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome? Just like Apple fans. I have rarely met Apple “users” and Backblaze Personal Backup “users”. I’ve mostly met their “fans” - they speak of these companies as if it was the second coming in their lives; as if it brought the light with it - which is very unhealthy imho. I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strategy. Apple’s I’d definitely think so. And no I don’t hate the companies itself. I am a paying b2 customer and I am satisfied with that service and I’m an iPhone mini user I (kinda) like the phone at that size and price; but moving away from these will be just one or a half medium to major fuckup away.
- m_st 5y ago
  That's their marketing and the fact that it is a rather expensive investment decision that you want to make sure to be right. Same when you buy a Tesla: You get a mail welcoming you to the 'Tesla family'. And given the costs, you sure want this to be the best choice.
- usaphp 5y ago
  > I have rarely met Apple “users” You’ve never met people who use iPhone or a Mac? What planet are you from?
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    Yeah, I really think that the average person on the street is more of an Apple “user” than a “fan”.
    - qorrect 5y ago
      Yeah I am an Apple 'user' , I have an iPhone 6s I like and that's it.
- ksec 5y ago
  >I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strategy. I have rarely read any fandom about Backblaze. There may be just a few mentions whenever there is a topic of backup or S3 alternative. But I remember vividly there were at least a few hundred if not thousands of hateful comments on HN when they swear to god they will never use them again because of a mistake they made with Facebook analytics. Anyone who defended Backblaze at the time for its possible engineering mistakes were borderline being attacked. I dont know if there is any Stockholm syndrome on Backblaze but I definitely see Facebookphobia on HN and on Twitter.
goatherders 5y ago
It is not the SaaS providers job to try and decipher a user's intentions. Lots of services (Pipedrive for example) will let users pay indefinitely for licebsed not in use. Sure, it works to their advantage from a revenue standpoint. But it also presumes that the user is paying attention to their expenses and making a decision. In Pipedrive's case they do this so IT can provision new users on their first day without having to create an internal billing nightmare. You can't have it both ways, demanding privacy and respect from software publishers then crying when the software doesn't serve your use case exactly and make assumptions about your intentions.
unixhero 5y ago
7 days is way too short notice period, 30 or 60 days would be a better grace. However I think the overall message was really cool.

robbiemitchell 5y ago

I already had other (newer) computers being backed up, and this was a courtesy email to tell me I had failed to stop paying for monthly backups for a computer I had not opened (and thus synced) for years. He emailed me because the version running on that computer was considered so unstable as to be unreliable. Yes, they could have proactively canceled my bill. Maybe they would have! We'll never know, because I responded to this email right away. He responded to my questions in a lengthy email, which I'll paste again here because I had the foresight to ask in advance for future permission to post publicly. === Hi Robbie, thanks for getting back to me! It's hard getting through the email marketing overload. :-) > Would you be amenable to holding off on deleting the backup > for two weeks (instead of one) No worries, the most important part is that you are aware the computer is no longer actually performing fresh backups of new data. We can wait a while. > would you mind if I published your email publicly? Go ahead, and one of our marketing guys (Yev) already saw your tweet go by, it made everybody in our office laugh too. I'm off in my corner watching logs and emailing the random old customer, they didn't know I do this. :-) One of the things I've been amazed at doing backup software is how many assumptions I made at the start that aren't true and the MODERN Backblaze software works around: 1) assumption: your disk on your laptop will reliably store bytes or fail. Wrong, it can throw random bits, undetected unless Backblaze keeps its own parallel check sums. 2) assumption: laptop RAM works reliably. Wrong, I think there is a reason servers run ECC RAM, and I'm confused why many laptops choose not to. I guess saving $5 is more important than data Integrity? 3) assumption: the HTTP posts either work or fail. Wrong: WAY MORE OFTEN than the file system are undetected silent data corruption. Solution: client end to end SHA hashes. 4) assumption: customers are sane and won't "edit" the Backblaze internal data structures sitting on the customer's laptop. Nope! If customers are computer beginners they tend to behave nicely, and the most advanced customers are very careful, but there is this crazy middle ground who know enough to be dangerous to themselves. :-) I really really think that the most modern version of Backblaze (2.3.1 and later) is quite stable and might run flawlessly for a decade on a computer, but some of those early versions like anything starting with a 1.0 or 1.5 scare me because there are too many assumptions in them, not paranoid enough. Yes, the old versions WILL WORK for 99 percent of customers, but at our customer numbers that means every day we have to explain why a restore failed to some poor guy who chose to edit his Backblaze data structures corrupting his own backup and we didn't detect it soon enough. Our most recent client versions are deeply, profoundly paranoid software that basically assumes your laptop is right smack dab in the middle of melting down, throwing disk and RAM errors as an insane laptop owner not only ignores the warning signs of impending data Armageddon, but fights with Backblaze trying to defeat it from backing up because the customer is worried Backblaze is "wasting his bandwidth". I feel good about this, it's like my whole career was training up to write this incredibly important piece of software. -- Brian Wilson. CTO Backblaze brianw@backblaze.com

throw6622 5y ago
What a fantastic response!
oh_sigh 5y ago
Geez, this guy really is a genius.
jmspring 5y ago
I recall chatting with Brian when we started Zetta. It wasn’t a match in terms of tech/direction, but I’ve been a loyal customer as well for years.
brianwski 5y ago
Hey Robbie- I am touched you saved my email and remembered me, and that at the time you didn't respond negatively to the message. Thank you for being a customer. The only thing I regret is that comment about version number of 2.3.1 and the claim that it would run flawlessly for a decade. Oh geez, please upgrade to 8.0.1, you won't regret it. -- Brian Wilson, CTO Backblaze, brianw@backblaze.com
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  But what about the part where you said you were going to delete their files in a week? I don’t understand why someone would say that.
- argc 5y ago
  This conversation makes me think you care about your users and inspired me to go look at pricing for personal laptop backup, and it appears that linux is not supported. Any plans to support it in the future? EDIT I might have not looked hard enough and there are potentially options out there, I just found https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-How-does-Backblaze-support-Linux-Users- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-How-d...
  - teraflop 5y ago
    For many years, they were consistently and very diplomatically saying that they had no plans to offer Backblaze Personal Backup to Linux users, because Linux users would use a disproportionately large amount of storage and it wouldn't make sense to offer them a flat-rate alternative to the pay-per-GB B2 option. e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/jsrqoz/personal_backup_linux/gc1peyh/ https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/jsrqoz/personal_... It seems that they may be changing their tune, at least as of a few months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/m3xynu/backblaze_on_linux_yet_again/ https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/m3xynu/backblaze...

pxx 5y ago

Yeah, this is awful. I don't understand why they would also delete the data from that machine even if new data weren't flowing. What if you had needed the data from years ago? Isn't that part of the whole point of backup??

IncRnd 5y ago
Yea, that email made no sense to me. It read as 1) You are paying for a backup service. 2) We decided that the version of your software is too old, even though it backed-up data. 3) Since you are a valued customer, we will delete your data. 4) We are a HAPPY company! Have a great day!
treesknees 5y ago
That's actually not the whole point of a backup in this context. It's important to remember that the Backblaze Personal Backup service is essentially an emergency extra copy, not a data archive. Once the client backs up a file (or more accurately a revision of a file), it checks every 30 days that the file still exists locally. If it does not, then it will be deleted from the cloud backup. For example if you plug in an external harddrive and back it up with Backblaze, if you don't plug it in at least once every 30 days, then its cloud copy is deleted. So no, the intention of Backblaze is not to keep your offline machine from several years ago securely backed up. That being said, you can pay for unlimited revisions which just stores your data in b2 and you pay per month on the extra storage. In that case then yes I would expect the data from years ago to still be present. But that's a recent addition, and not what the OP was using.
- roland-s 5y ago
  Backups are deleted after six months not 30 days. 30 days is the default revision history kept for each file. Point still stands though. source: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-happens-to-my-backups-when-I-m-away-or-on-vacation- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-...
- pxx 5y ago
  That might not be the _intention_ but surely backblaze doesn't just delete the entire contents of your account if your computer goes entirely offline for a month? Suppose my house catches on fire. I might not immediately get around to booting all of my computers again (in fact, it might be months until I have the same set of computers again), but I sure don't expect Backblaze to just start deleting files even while I'm paying them! Importantly they had the _choice_ to delete this data. Note that the email seems to indicate that the sender will personally delete the backup in a week.

max46 5y ago

the answer is simple... either it's an employee for the marketing department who can turn anything into a positive or it's a fanboy. The page long responses that starts with textbook marketing BS ("No worries, the most important..") tells me it's from an employee because no one cares that much and actively wants people to lose data faster. The amount of buzzwords in his other response... ffs how can you guys seriously think that it's just a normal person who likes the service?! you should know better.

bloqs 5y ago
Brian has now responded in the same thread
robbiemitchell 5y ago
Hmm. I am indeed just a normal person who likes the software. Backblaze + Dropbox have saved me multiple times.

kottaram 5y ago

The CTO just said the truth. How else would he say that the customer's data will be deleted? Sure it was straight up blunt, but I think he was just speaking casually.

olalonde 5y ago
I am very confused by the email, especially the second point. I've never used Backblaze so maybe I'm missing some critical information. To me, it sounds like Backblaze was happily keeping a backup for a paying customer until said customer booted their laptop. They then threaten to delete the backup if customer doesn't update their software. I understand about warning that the software no longer works but why threaten to delete the backup?
- kjaftaedi 5y ago
  Likely some sort of encryption/privacy issues. Since the software version no longer works, they wouldn't be able to do a restore anyway. Keeping their old data on the live servers longer could be a liability. (just a guess, but i imagine it's something along these lines)
  - chalupa-man 5y ago
    > they wouldn't be able to do a restore anyway. The Backblaze software doesn't handle restores, it just backs things up. To restore, you download zip files of selected folders from the website.
    - treesknees 5y ago
      They also offer a separate app for performing downloads/restores https://www.backblaze.com/help-backblaze-downloader-win.html https://www.backblaze.com/help-backblaze-downloader-win.html
- koheripbal 5y ago
  My guess is that this one installation was causing a broader production issue. I agree that a better solution would have been to remove the backup to a secondary system that the client could later access if needed. Deleting in 7 days is unreasonable.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

This is a very Backblaze Personal Backup fan thingie. Some kind of twisted Stockholm syndrome? Just like Apple fans. I have rarely met Apple “users” and Backblaze Personal Backup “users”. I’ve mostly met their “fans” - they speak of these companies as if it was the second coming in their lives; as if it brought the light with it - which is very unhealthy imho. I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strategy. Apple’s I’d definitely think so. And no I don’t hate the companies itself. I am a paying b2 customer and I am satisfied with that service and I’m an iPhone mini user I (kinda) like the phone at that size and price; but moving away from these will be just one or a half medium to major fuckup away.

m_st 5y ago
That's their marketing and the fact that it is a rather expensive investment decision that you want to make sure to be right. Same when you buy a Tesla: You get a mail welcoming you to the 'Tesla family'. And given the costs, you sure want this to be the best choice.
usaphp 5y ago
> I have rarely met Apple “users” You’ve never met people who use iPhone or a Mac? What planet are you from?
- ryanlol 5y ago
  Yeah, I really think that the average person on the street is more of an Apple “user” than a “fan”.
  - qorrect 5y ago
    Yeah I am an Apple 'user' , I have an iPhone 6s I like and that's it.
ksec 5y ago
>I wonder whether it’s their marketing and PR spin/strategy. I have rarely read any fandom about Backblaze. There may be just a few mentions whenever there is a topic of backup or S3 alternative. But I remember vividly there were at least a few hundred if not thousands of hateful comments on HN when they swear to god they will never use them again because of a mistake they made with Facebook analytics. Anyone who defended Backblaze at the time for its possible engineering mistakes were borderline being attacked. I dont know if there is any Stockholm syndrome on Backblaze but I definitely see Facebookphobia on HN and on Twitter.

goatherders 5y ago

It is not the SaaS providers job to try and decipher a user's intentions. Lots of services (Pipedrive for example) will let users pay indefinitely for licebsed not in use. Sure, it works to their advantage from a revenue standpoint. But it also presumes that the user is paying attention to their expenses and making a decision. In Pipedrive's case they do this so IT can provision new users on their first day without having to create an internal billing nightmare. You can't have it both ways, demanding privacy and respect from software publishers then crying when the software doesn't serve your use case exactly and make assumptions about your intentions.

unixhero 5y ago

7 days is way too short notice period, 30 or 60 days would be a better grace. However I think the overall message was really cool.