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Yikes. I'm not unsympathetic, but if there's any one recurrent theme I've seen in computing over the 40 years I've been here, it's make backups. I always had a

Yikes. I'm not unsympathetic, but if there's any one recurrent theme I've seen in computing over the 40 years I've been here, it's make backups. I always had a sort of genial skepticism of Svbtle: I liked the idea, but there was something a bit...for want of a more gentle term, a bit blowhardy about Dustin Curtis's own writing style, and like others, I was bemused by that "forever promise." It's impressive, but how can you guarantee that? In fact, it doesn't guarantee it, precisely, based on the footnote of the linked content: > “Forever” means until the HTML-based “web” is no longer generally accessible or until Svbtle or its parent company becomes financially insolvent (which we intend to avoid given that users pay for the service). (Emphasis added.) Many years ago I signed up for the "lifetime hosting" at TextDrive, which turned out to really mean "until the parent company went all-in on managed enterprise hosting"; Joyent's management appeared to be somewhat surprised and irritated that we expected "lifetime" to mean "if not our own personal lifetimes, then at least as long as your company is in business". Svbtle clearly tried to do better, and I don't doubt they meant it, but it's still a big ask. Having said that, I also suspect it's basically a one-person business, so goodness knows what's up. Is there a customer service email address? Have you tried emailing "hi@dustincurtis.com", which appears to be Dustin Curtis's email address?

dasil003 5y ago
Yeah I was there for TextDrive too. That was more of a slap in the face because it was Dean Allen's personality that brought us in, but Jason Hoffman was running the thing, and he was really more interested in playing with Solaris than providing a stable service. The whole Joyent acqui-pivot (or whatever that was) was just the final fuck-you to those of us who thought it was a cool indie grassroots thing. As far as Svbtle is concerned, this appears to just be small operation downtime which is the poison you've chosen if you go that way. Can't say there's any "forever guarantee" that really means much. The best you can get is that if you sign with Oracle they'll guarantee to ratchet up that dependency to charge you more and more over time. Hard to beat that as an incentive for uptime.
- shrubble 5y ago
  Joyent did sponsor the work that led to NodeJS however, I think? While I wouldn't excuse any bad behavior, that is a point in Joyent's favor...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - wut42 5y ago
    The Joyent that made Node wasn't really the Joyent that brought TextDrive, afaik. That company has a long history of.... fuckups, maybe ?
  - spion 5y ago
    They did not.
    - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
      It's probably not accurate to phrase it as "Joyent sponsored the the work that led to Node.js", but it was essentially their project in the early 2010s. They were paying full-time salaries to Node and NPM's creators, and Ryan Dahl described Node as being "officially under Joyent's roof". https://groups.google.com/g/nodejs/c/lWo0MbHZ6Tc https://groups.google.com/g/nodejs/c/lWo0MbHZ6Tc (I remember, after TextDrive fell apart, making a rather sardonic blog post observing that if I were heavily involved with Node, I would be making contingency plans.)
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  To be fair to Allen and Hoffman, when Joyent and TextDrive "merged", Joyent's business was basically a SaaS mail/calendar/collaboration system called "Joyent Connector" and TextDrive was the supposedly complementary hosting platform. It was a couple years after the merge that Allen left and Hoffman decided to go full bore enterprise.
  - dasil003 5y ago
em-bee 5y ago
the thing is, making backups on a blog is actually non-trivial. if i host my own then it's easy to just have an automated backup of the database or the static files. but on any online tool it depends on the APIs that are available. if there is RSS i could find an RSS download tool, but if not then it would most likely have to be manual copy-paste which you have to remember to do and is quite inconvenient if you are on the road.
- tppiotrowski 5y ago
  Most simple blogs today can get by with a git repository and a github action that converts Markdown to HTML and pushes the output to free static hosting.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    well yes, that's what i meant with hosting my own. but if you use svbtle, medium or substack or any other hosted platform, how do you back up that?
  - Irongirl1 5y ago
    "but for a non technical person it is too much to ask.” *Waves hands frantically* over here that's me....and it is just one reason I keep talking myself out of blogging.
- slim 5y ago
  IMHO it's as trivial as CTRL-S after you publish the blog post. If you care
  - em-bee 5y ago
    the point is, it's manual, and any manual process is messy and errorprone. you can forget to do it or you can be on a device where it is not practical, or simply not have the time. and saving that whole html page instead of the actual text also produces a very messy result. have fun restoring that.

dasil003 5y ago

Yeah I was there for TextDrive too. That was more of a slap in the face because it was Dean Allen's personality that brought us in, but Jason Hoffman was running the thing, and he was really more interested in playing with Solaris than providing a stable service. The whole Joyent acqui-pivot (or whatever that was) was just the final fuck-you to those of us who thought it was a cool indie grassroots thing. As far as Svbtle is concerned, this appears to just be small operation downtime which is the poison you've chosen if you go that way. Can't say there's any "forever guarantee" that really means much. The best you can get is that if you sign with Oracle they'll guarantee to ratchet up that dependency to charge you more and more over time. Hard to beat that as an incentive for uptime.

shrubble 5y ago
Joyent did sponsor the work that led to NodeJS however, I think? While I wouldn't excuse any bad behavior, that is a point in Joyent's favor...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wut42 5y ago
  The Joyent that made Node wasn't really the Joyent that brought TextDrive, afaik. That company has a long history of.... fuckups, maybe ?
- spion 5y ago
  They did not.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    It's probably not accurate to phrase it as "Joyent sponsored the the work that led to Node.js", but it was essentially their project in the early 2010s. They were paying full-time salaries to Node and NPM's creators, and Ryan Dahl described Node as being "officially under Joyent's roof". https://groups.google.com/g/nodejs/c/lWo0MbHZ6Tc https://groups.google.com/g/nodejs/c/lWo0MbHZ6Tc (I remember, after TextDrive fell apart, making a rather sardonic blog post observing that if I were heavily involved with Node, I would be making contingency plans.)
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
To be fair to Allen and Hoffman, when Joyent and TextDrive "merged", Joyent's business was basically a SaaS mail/calendar/collaboration system called "Joyent Connector" and TextDrive was the supposedly complementary hosting platform. It was a couple years after the merge that Allen left and Hoffman decided to go full bore enterprise.
- dasil003 5y ago

em-bee 5y ago

the thing is, making backups on a blog is actually non-trivial. if i host my own then it's easy to just have an automated backup of the database or the static files. but on any online tool it depends on the APIs that are available. if there is RSS i could find an RSS download tool, but if not then it would most likely have to be manual copy-paste which you have to remember to do and is quite inconvenient if you are on the road.

tppiotrowski 5y ago
Most simple blogs today can get by with a git repository and a github action that converts Markdown to HTML and pushes the output to free static hosting.
- em-bee 5y ago
  well yes, that's what i meant with hosting my own. but if you use svbtle, medium or substack or any other hosted platform, how do you back up that?
- Irongirl1 5y ago
  "but for a non technical person it is too much to ask.” *Waves hands frantically* over here that's me....and it is just one reason I keep talking myself out of blogging.
slim 5y ago
IMHO it's as trivial as CTRL-S after you publish the blog post. If you care
- em-bee 5y ago
  the point is, it's manual, and any manual process is messy and errorprone. you can forget to do it or you can be on a device where it is not practical, or simply not have the time. and saving that whole html page instead of the actual text also produces a very messy result. have fun restoring that.