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You get what you pay for. (Sorry for the obviously totally useless comment that is not helpful in any way. But seriously: I've seen this happen to a number of

by zevv 5y ago

You get what you pay for. (Sorry for the obviously totally useless comment that is not helpful in any way. But seriously: I've seen this happen to a number of people, and you're just out of luck - computer says no. If you value your digital history, host your mail and file at a party where you pay for the service - that makes you a customer not a product)

everybodyknows 5y ago
"Catastrophic” hack on email provider destroys almost two decades of data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146110
aNoob7000 5y ago
I couldn't agree with you more. People complain about free services like if they were directly paying for it. I have my main email service through Protonmail and my GMail account is for all the spamming email stuff.
- jeltz 5y ago
  It is not like you get much better service when you pay for Gmail. Maybe huge customers do, but small ones are treated almost like free users.
hk__2 5y ago
> If you value your digital history, host your mail and file at a party where you pay for the service - that makes you a customer not a product And then the hosting company has a fire in their datacenter and there’s someone on HN saying it’s still your fault because you needed to do backups as well. And then you have a backup issue and there’s someone on HN saying it’s still your fault for some other reason. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B20NU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B...
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  There is always someone on HN willing to blame the victim and excuse, or at least shrug at, the bad behaviour of trillion dollar tech companies.
  - ufmace 5y ago
    That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is being solution-focused. Tech megacorps often behave badly yes. But what can we realistically do about it? Discussing that just puts into yet another pointless political argument. Even in the best case situation it may take a decade to actually do anything, assuming whatever gets done actually works the way we hoped. Maybe we should do something like that one of these days. But meanwhile, the OP has an actual problem right now. They would probably appreciate something they can directly do to fix it now or ensure it doesn't happen, instead of moving the discussion to the 50 billionth political argument on the internet that does nothing to help them.
- roenxi 5y ago
  You appear to be suggesting that because other HN comments (arguing different things, no less!) exist that zevv is wrong. That isn't a very powerful argument. I have some sympathy for both sides of the debate, but fact is that if your emails are important to you, using a free service from a rather unreliable company like Google is the lazy choice. One of the main reasons it is free is because you get no support if something goes wrong.
  - hk__2 5y ago
    > One of the main reasons it is free is because you get no support if something goes wrong. No, it’s the opposite: you get no support because there are too many people using it because it’s free. In theory paying for a service should get you better support, but in practice there are thousands of counter-examples.
hhansen 5y ago
Sarcastically, I would say he paid dearly with his privacy and metadata, without ever giving it a second thought.

by zevv 5y ago

everybodyknows 5y ago

"Catastrophic” hack on email provider destroys almost two decades of data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146110

aNoob7000 5y ago

I couldn't agree with you more. People complain about free services like if they were directly paying for it. I have my main email service through Protonmail and my GMail account is for all the spamming email stuff.

jeltz 5y ago
It is not like you get much better service when you pay for Gmail. Maybe huge customers do, but small ones are treated almost like free users.

hk__2 5y ago

> If you value your digital history, host your mail and file at a party where you pay for the service - that makes you a customer not a product And then the hosting company has a fire in their datacenter and there’s someone on HN saying it’s still your fault because you needed to do backups as well. And then you have a backup issue and there’s someone on HN saying it’s still your fault for some other reason. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B20NU https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B...

Ensorceled 5y ago
There is always someone on HN willing to blame the victim and excuse, or at least shrug at, the bad behaviour of trillion dollar tech companies.
- ufmace 5y ago
  That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is being solution-focused. Tech megacorps often behave badly yes. But what can we realistically do about it? Discussing that just puts into yet another pointless political argument. Even in the best case situation it may take a decade to actually do anything, assuming whatever gets done actually works the way we hoped. Maybe we should do something like that one of these days. But meanwhile, the OP has an actual problem right now. They would probably appreciate something they can directly do to fix it now or ensure it doesn't happen, instead of moving the discussion to the 50 billionth political argument on the internet that does nothing to help them.
roenxi 5y ago
You appear to be suggesting that because other HN comments (arguing different things, no less!) exist that zevv is wrong. That isn't a very powerful argument. I have some sympathy for both sides of the debate, but fact is that if your emails are important to you, using a free service from a rather unreliable company like Google is the lazy choice. One of the main reasons it is free is because you get no support if something goes wrong.
- hk__2 5y ago
  > One of the main reasons it is free is because you get no support if something goes wrong. No, it’s the opposite: you get no support because there are too many people using it because it’s free. In theory paying for a service should get you better support, but in practice there are thousands of counter-examples.

hhansen 5y ago

Sarcastically, I would say he paid dearly with his privacy and metadata, without ever giving it a second thought.