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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

I think the hope is that 420,000 of those users are Grandmas who installed backblaze because their son told them it's a good idea to make sure she doesn't lose all her important documents, and she's backing up a couple PDFs.

And then the other 10,000 are data hoarders like me with Terabytes of data.

I used to be a Crashplan customer - tried them and Backblaze, and liked Crashplan more. They eventually pivoted to Business only.

I was at AWS Re:invent and came up to their booth and bemoaned the loss of a great service. They said "How much data were you backing up?" I told them. They said "yeah, we lose a ton of money on every user like you."

Fair enough!

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> They said "yeah, we lose a ton of money on every user like you."

Such an interesting statement. It's like they really think they can get away with offering "unlimited" storage without people taking full advantage of it. Like ISPs with their "unlimited" plans, they market that stuff and then they get mad if you actually saturate their link 24/7.

I actually emailed backblaze about this years ago. I asked them if they were really okay with me just dumping 10-20 terabytes of encrypted data that can't be deduplicated on their servers for such a low monthly price. I actually got a reply saying there was no problem.

> Thanks for writing in! Our system is truly unlimited.

> You can backup move than 15TB of data if you have that amount without hitting a cap or any extra fees.

> The business product just adds options for multiple backups and users.

Really surprising... I almost subscribed to their service on the spot. I gave up because transfering 20 TB over the internet is insane: it would take days to restore a backup. Also, they had no Linux software.

I think they avoid Linux support to prevent people like me from putting it on my Linux server. They also don't allow Windows Server to run it either. But hey, you can always use something like Goodsync and B2.

> It's like they really think they can get away with offering "unlimited" storage without people taking full advantage of it.

I didn't sense that they were bitter about it. But in both cases I do have some sympathy for the business.

There is "unlimited" in the sense of what a regular average p50 user would consider reasonable ("every photo i've ever taken with my cellphone of my grandchild")

Then there is "unlimited" for a professional p99 user("Every RAW file of every photo i've ever taken as a professional photographer")

And then there is "unlimited" for a data hoarder p99.99 user ("Every movie i've ever torrented in 4k, plus multiple seasons of every TV show ever made")

As a business you design your model to attract to the p50 customer so that Grandma doesn't have to worry about deleting photos, taking things too far, and losing something important. Unlimited is powerful here. The hope is that the p99 use case gets offset by the person who's paying for the service but barely using it.

The p99.99 user? They're just a pain in the butt. You can't chase them away without also chasing away grandma (You can't say "Data cap of 1TB" - people have no idea how much data anything uses).

So of course you tolerate them. But ultimately? They're the reason you go out of business. They're the reason Crashplan switched to B2B, and why Backblaze isn't making any money. Can't feel good.

I wonder if people would be scared away by a cap phrased in terms of entire hard drives.

That would still allow some pretty heavy users, but it would stop the people trying to dump hundreds of terabytes onto the service.

I understand exactly what you're saying. It's perfectly reasonable. However, it's not what companies are selling.

They sell "unlimited". That's what their marketing always promises. Nowhere does it say "unlimited, but only if you're a normal everyday 50th percentile person". They always say it's "unlimited".

So they should absolutely be obligated to keep their promise and deliver unlimited service to even the 99.9999th percentile users. That's what they sold consumers, that's what consumers should get.

Having a hard cap could scare away average users who don't understand how much data they have, and just want a simple, set and forget solution. How is grandma supposed to know her kids' photos aren't "10TB"?

It's like they really think they can get away with offering "unlimited" storage without people taking full advantage of it.

Well, yes, it's like a all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant that nonetheless isn't going to let you bring in a giant cooler and fill it up to take home.

Love this analogy.

I see it as almost the opposite of a buffet. A really big meal isn't that much bigger than a median meal, but personal data varies a lot.

If you look at BackBlaze's histogram, 1/3 of the users are under 100GB and 2/3 are under 500GB. BackBlaze makes a nice profit on those users. But let's say I have just one moderately large drive that's mostly full. Looking at the sales at Best Buy right now, let's say that's a 14TB drive. BackBlaze would lose a ton of money on that, even though it's really hard to argue it's unreasonable in any way, completely unlike a cooler at a buffet.

No. All-you-can-eat is a simple concept. Everybody understands that. You go there, eat until you're satisfied, and then you pay. There is no lie to be found.

Unlimited is a different but equally simple concept with universally accepted meaning: no limits. Companies should not be able to twist this meaning while enjoying the benefits of their deceptive marketing. They can't just lie to their consumers, cash in and then pull the rug from under them later because they violated their assumptions about likely usage patterns. They sold the consumers unlimited usage and assumed they would not use it. Some crazy person actually decided to use the service to the fullest possible extent? They must honor their promises.

All-you-can-eat is a simple concept. Everybody understands that.

No, not everybody does, which is why they have to have signs saying you can't take food home.

"Unlimited backup (of data stored on the internal storage of a single personal-use laptop or desktop running Windows or MacOS X)" is not fundamentally different from "Bottomless coffee (consumed by one person only in a single visit)" or "A year's supply of fuel (really a $3000 balance fuel card)". There's a "reasonable person" standard here, and the man on the Clapham Omnibus knows that these sorts of offers have fine print which it behoves you to read.

> they have to have signs saying you can't take food home

I don't understand how it's possible to misunderstand all-you-can-eat buffets. The words correctly describe the service: you can eat there until you're literally full. There is no "unlimited" anywhere. Those people must be acting in bad faith.

> There's a "reasonable person" standard here

It's perfectly reasonable to assume unlimited really means unlimited and not some industry-specific, lawyer version of the word.

> these sorts of offers have fine print which it behoves you to read

The presence of these hidden "fine prints" is proof of deceptive advertising. This is why marketing cannot be trusted and why consumer protection laws really ought to put an end to these industry practices.

Nobody really reads or understands these terms. It's not like people will hire lawyers to analyze the legalese for them. This is not a deal between equal parties, consumers are severely disadvantaged. Just force them to deliver what they promised. They'll stop promsing soon enough.

This is not a deal between equal parties, consumers are severely disadvantaged. Just force them to deliver what they promised. They'll stop promsing soon enough.

No-one is being "severely disadvantaged". The unsophisticated users backing up their regular PCs are getting exactly what they paid for - a backup of their PC without having to even know what a terabyte is - and the /r/datahoarder types with a rack of JBODs full of every TV series ever made knew full well that they weren't going to get away with backing that up on a $7/month consumer single PC plan. In the event that one among the latter really was that credulous, sure, give 'em their 7 bucks back and now they're square.

> I gave up because transfering 20 TB over the internet is insane: it would take days to restore a backup.

They now have a service that ships your data to you on a hard disk, and the cost is refunded when you return the disk.

It'd probably take even more time for that disk to reach me. I'd probably also get taxed.

I would consider myself to be pretty far from a "Grandma"-type user. Nonetheless my Backblaze account only uses about 300GB. I pay for my mom's Backblaze as well. No idea how much she uses, but almost certainly way less than that.

Most people's precious data isn't actually that large. Unless you're backing up large amounts of media (photographer, movie collector, whatever) it's not easy to fill even 1TB.

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