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It's interesting to see that they also adopted the current industry standard of automatically banning people at random, not telling them why and not giving them

It's interesting to see that they also adopted the current industry standard of automatically banning people at random, not telling them why and not giving them any way to rectify it. But then, well, I mean, it's Oracle. What did you expect? Normally something like this would put them on my "will never use any of their products nor work with them" shitlist, but it's Oracle, so they were already there since, like, ever. Also, obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m

chrisseaton 4y ago
I think if you're making a list of big tech companies that will sometimes randomly shut-out customers due to automated monitoring, then that's all of them isn't it? I've seen a story about every one of them I'm sure. It's not a problem with individual companies, it's a general societal problem.
- Closi 4y ago
  Eh, even if it happens everywhere it’s frequency is different and some companies are easier to resolve it than others - I much prefer my chances with Microsoft than with Google for example.
  - rch 4y ago
    I've found that both are pleasant to work with, on the cloud side at least. That pleasant demeanor doesn't always translate into getting immediate results, but how could it really?
    - tedivm 4y ago
      I found working with Google people impossible, which includes on the account side. They are rude and unhelpful. I had an issue where the domain verification system Google uses was broken. There was a backend issue on their side where the Google Webmaster Verification worked fine but their Cloud Run product couldn't read it. Rather than help me their product manager said that Cloud Run was a preview service so it was my fault for using it- and then he preceded to recommend another service instead, although that service was also in preview. This is just one example of many. GCP is the only service I've used where product managers will straight up insult and lie to users, and they'll do it publicly too (following their accounts on twitter is almost hilarious for how rude they are). Unless your company has nine figures in revenue GCP will happily crap all over you.
      - alasdair_ 4y ago
        > I found working with Google people impossible, which includes on the account side. They are rude and unhelpful. I ran a business on GCP and paid for the $150/month support option. I was honestly pretty amazed at how good the support was (like, multiple google engineers stepping through my code line by line to find the root cause of an issue). For $150 a month (and only a few thousand a month total GCP spend) this seemed like a really good deal and included 24/7 4-hour response times. This was at least five years ago however - no idea if they still offer this plan today.
        tedivm 4y ago
        They laid off all of those people who used to help you and outsourced support. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-layoffs-support-teams-looker-2022-3?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-layoffs-support...
        dylanz 4y ago
        I pay $50/mo for basic GCP support and they’ve been fantastic thus far. That’s just my experience using it in the last few months.
    - lenkite 4y ago
      Having experience on both MS and Google platforms for our multi-cloud product, I can confidently state that Microsoft is far more responsive than Google.
- vintermann 4y ago
  At least Hacker News isn't randomly suspending accounts without notice...I think.
  - bob29 4y ago
    - datavirtue 4y ago
  - bt4u 4y ago
    They are.
    - dingleberry420 4y ago
      HN has a rich history of shadowbanning unwanted users. Everyone should turn on "showdead" on their profile, which, to be fair, is at least an option.
      - Bayart 4y ago
        They really shouldn't. People don't get randomly shadowbanned. Turning it on just shows a whole lot of vile, aggressive, hysterical rubbish.
        robocat 4y ago
        Do any social networks use GPT3 autogenerated replies to deceive the shadowbanned into thinking that they are not shouting into the void?
        thrownblown 4y ago
        maybe get dall-e to make some trolling comments to even siphon off some of that vitriol into the void
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  Its a good reason to choose Open Source, thats what it is.
- bhk 4y ago
  A "societal" problem that somehow mainly manifests in big tech?
  - mpol 4y ago
    Yes, the US is designed around the idea of a rich minority that is protected against the poor majority. How will that get fixed, what do you think? ;) The rich majority has their arm up in the government, the poor majority only gets the illusion of democracy and justice and freedom.
    - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
      It will get fixed just as soon as the socialists and neo-marxists obtain power, and then ... create an oppressive, centralized, and corrupt authoritarian regime, just like everywhere else they gain power? Like, seriously, what are you talking about? The US is designed that way as compared to what other society? In every society under the sun, money translates to power, and people with more money tend to have more power. The trick is to try to balance freedom to make money and spend it how you choose with limiting bribery and corruption, and no country gets that perfect because it's a hard problem with serious tradeoffs.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        If they "create an oppressive, centralized, and corrupt authoritarian regime", then they were never socialists to begin with, contrary to what a considerable number of people have been conditioned to believe such that they may continue to be endlessly exploited.
        smsm42 4y ago
        Ohh staap. Then there never ever were socialists to begin with in history, because 100% of the time they tried it ended up the same. But of course these all were wrong socialists and next time, surely, it would be different. One must be extremely deluded or extremely ignorant to believe that.
- superchroma 4y ago
  yeah it's getting a bit tough
- kragen 4y ago
  You should probably disclose when commenting on this thread that you are an Oracle employee.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    True. But he's also not wrong. I've lost track of how many companies have been on HN for doing this. Google especially. (I'm employed by neither oracle nor google.) Some automated system just cancels you, and somehow these big tech companies often just...don't have customer support phone lines so you can't talk to an employee unless you go to the office. It's a deliberate cost savings on their part that they seem to have just...gotten away with. I think there's a need for some sort of regulation here where if someone gives you money, you should be entitled to a phone number to call them at.
    - Melatonic 4y ago
      I think if you do pay Google money now (for Google One) they do have support. Or at least I think they do.
      - intothemild 4y ago
        They do. But for Google one and Workspace customers.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > you are an Oracle employee No I’m not.
    - kragen 4y ago
      Apologies, I didn't realize you'd left to work at Shopify.
- orev 4y ago
  And that’s fine with me. This problem is caused by big tech companies money grab trying to force everyone into the cloud and charge subscription fees. I never have this problem with on-prem software because I have control over what it does. If a big ban list is what’s needed to remind people that cloud isn’t the only way to do things, then I’m all for it.
theta_d 4y ago
Knew what that link was without clicking.
jerf 4y ago
Oracle being Oracle, I imagine that A: they're annoyed they didn't get to invent the process and B: they're very very annoyed that there's no way to ban people at random, not tell them why, not give them any way to rectify it, and keep their money, since it's free tier. That apex post-capitalism there.
- wombatpm 4y ago
  He should be thankful he was just banned and not served with a lawsuit - Oracle's typical move.
guywithahat 4y ago
Yeah I'm not happy to read this, but this is basically what all big tech does nowadays. And small tech companies, even if they have better customer service will probably break your service by accident. In this case though he seems to be using the free tier which, if you need to use professionally, you shouldn't be using
rustqt6 4y ago
It is not an industry standard. ONLY Google does it. And now oracle. So if you decide oracle, remember to deride Google too.
capkutay 4y ago
It’s a free cloud service. If you rely on someone else to host your compute/storage at no cost, prepare for getting little or very delayed support. Ask all the YouTube creators or Instagram users that had their accounts randomly shut off and had to do a lot of work to get it back. This isn’t specific to Oracle at all. Or try AWS and get a surprise $10k bill that they won’t refund.
- supermatt 4y ago
  Have you had a surprise 10k AWS bill they wont refund? My understanding is that they are (or were) pretty good at writing those off.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    There is some criteria you have to meet first. I believe your project must have monitoring in place for billing alerts.

chrisseaton 4y ago

I think if you're making a list of big tech companies that will sometimes randomly shut-out customers due to automated monitoring, then that's all of them isn't it? I've seen a story about every one of them I'm sure. It's not a problem with individual companies, it's a general societal problem.

Closi 4y ago
Eh, even if it happens everywhere it’s frequency is different and some companies are easier to resolve it than others - I much prefer my chances with Microsoft than with Google for example.
- rch 4y ago
  I've found that both are pleasant to work with, on the cloud side at least. That pleasant demeanor doesn't always translate into getting immediate results, but how could it really?
  - tedivm 4y ago
    I found working with Google people impossible, which includes on the account side. They are rude and unhelpful. I had an issue where the domain verification system Google uses was broken. There was a backend issue on their side where the Google Webmaster Verification worked fine but their Cloud Run product couldn't read it. Rather than help me their product manager said that Cloud Run was a preview service so it was my fault for using it- and then he preceded to recommend another service instead, although that service was also in preview. This is just one example of many. GCP is the only service I've used where product managers will straight up insult and lie to users, and they'll do it publicly too (following their accounts on twitter is almost hilarious for how rude they are). Unless your company has nine figures in revenue GCP will happily crap all over you.
    - alasdair_ 4y ago
      > I found working with Google people impossible, which includes on the account side. They are rude and unhelpful. I ran a business on GCP and paid for the $150/month support option. I was honestly pretty amazed at how good the support was (like, multiple google engineers stepping through my code line by line to find the root cause of an issue). For $150 a month (and only a few thousand a month total GCP spend) this seemed like a really good deal and included 24/7 4-hour response times. This was at least five years ago however - no idea if they still offer this plan today.
      - tedivm 4y ago
        They laid off all of those people who used to help you and outsourced support. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-layoffs-support-teams-looker-2022-3?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-cloud-layoffs-support...
      - dylanz 4y ago
        I pay $50/mo for basic GCP support and they’ve been fantastic thus far. That’s just my experience using it in the last few months.
  - lenkite 4y ago
    Having experience on both MS and Google platforms for our multi-cloud product, I can confidently state that Microsoft is far more responsive than Google.
vintermann 4y ago
At least Hacker News isn't randomly suspending accounts without notice...I think.
- bob29 4y ago
  - datavirtue 4y ago
- bt4u 4y ago
  They are.
  - dingleberry420 4y ago
    HN has a rich history of shadowbanning unwanted users. Everyone should turn on "showdead" on their profile, which, to be fair, is at least an option.
    - Bayart 4y ago
      They really shouldn't. People don't get randomly shadowbanned. Turning it on just shows a whole lot of vile, aggressive, hysterical rubbish.
      - robocat 4y ago
        Do any social networks use GPT3 autogenerated replies to deceive the shadowbanned into thinking that they are not shouting into the void?
        thrownblown 4y ago
        maybe get dall-e to make some trolling comments to even siphon off some of that vitriol into the void
ensignavenger 4y ago
Its a good reason to choose Open Source, thats what it is.
bhk 4y ago
A "societal" problem that somehow mainly manifests in big tech?
- mpol 4y ago
  Yes, the US is designed around the idea of a rich minority that is protected against the poor majority. How will that get fixed, what do you think? ;) The rich majority has their arm up in the government, the poor majority only gets the illusion of democracy and justice and freedom.
  - PathOfEclipse 4y ago
    It will get fixed just as soon as the socialists and neo-marxists obtain power, and then ... create an oppressive, centralized, and corrupt authoritarian regime, just like everywhere else they gain power? Like, seriously, what are you talking about? The US is designed that way as compared to what other society? In every society under the sun, money translates to power, and people with more money tend to have more power. The trick is to try to balance freedom to make money and spend it how you choose with limiting bribery and corruption, and no country gets that perfect because it's a hard problem with serious tradeoffs.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      If they "create an oppressive, centralized, and corrupt authoritarian regime", then they were never socialists to begin with, contrary to what a considerable number of people have been conditioned to believe such that they may continue to be endlessly exploited.
      - smsm42 4y ago
        Ohh staap. Then there never ever were socialists to begin with in history, because 100% of the time they tried it ended up the same. But of course these all were wrong socialists and next time, surely, it would be different. One must be extremely deluded or extremely ignorant to believe that.
superchroma 4y ago
yeah it's getting a bit tough
kragen 4y ago
You should probably disclose when commenting on this thread that you are an Oracle employee.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  True. But he's also not wrong. I've lost track of how many companies have been on HN for doing this. Google especially. (I'm employed by neither oracle nor google.) Some automated system just cancels you, and somehow these big tech companies often just...don't have customer support phone lines so you can't talk to an employee unless you go to the office. It's a deliberate cost savings on their part that they seem to have just...gotten away with. I think there's a need for some sort of regulation here where if someone gives you money, you should be entitled to a phone number to call them at.
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    I think if you do pay Google money now (for Google One) they do have support. Or at least I think they do.
    - intothemild 4y ago
      They do. But for Google one and Workspace customers.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > you are an Oracle employee No I’m not.
  - kragen 4y ago
    Apologies, I didn't realize you'd left to work at Shopify.
orev 4y ago
And that’s fine with me. This problem is caused by big tech companies money grab trying to force everyone into the cloud and charge subscription fees. I never have this problem with on-prem software because I have control over what it does. If a big ban list is what’s needed to remind people that cloud isn’t the only way to do things, then I’m all for it.

theta_d 4y ago

Knew what that link was without clicking.

jerf 4y ago

Oracle being Oracle, I imagine that A: they're annoyed they didn't get to invent the process and B: they're very very annoyed that there's no way to ban people at random, not tell them why, not give them any way to rectify it, and keep their money, since it's free tier. That apex post-capitalism there.

wombatpm 4y ago
He should be thankful he was just banned and not served with a lawsuit - Oracle's typical move.

guywithahat 4y ago

Yeah I'm not happy to read this, but this is basically what all big tech does nowadays. And small tech companies, even if they have better customer service will probably break your service by accident. In this case though he seems to be using the free tier which, if you need to use professionally, you shouldn't be using

rustqt6 4y ago

It is not an industry standard. ONLY Google does it. And now oracle. So if you decide oracle, remember to deride Google too.

capkutay 4y ago

It’s a free cloud service. If you rely on someone else to host your compute/storage at no cost, prepare for getting little or very delayed support. Ask all the YouTube creators or Instagram users that had their accounts randomly shut off and had to do a lot of work to get it back. This isn’t specific to Oracle at all. Or try AWS and get a surprise $10k bill that they won’t refund.

supermatt 4y ago
Have you had a surprise 10k AWS bill they wont refund? My understanding is that they are (or were) pretty good at writing those off.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  There is some criteria you have to meet first. I believe your project must have monitoring in place for billing alerts.