As noted elsewhere, notification seems to have been the big issue. I've spoken to some (reputable) people, who said that they basically just got lucky by random

As noted elsewhere, notification seems to have been the big issue. I've spoken to some (reputable) people, who said that they basically just got lucky by randomly logging in shortly before the big wipe happened, and seeing a "This account is expiring" notice which gave them enough heads-up to grab copies if they didn't have them already. They didn't receive emails or any other type of off-site notification. So someone who didn't log in to their blip account might well be totally screwed, since they wouldn't have known they needed to make or check on their backups.