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Comment by cochne | Hacker News Reader

I hardly think it's fair to say that they were 'taking advantage'. If Google says unlimited, should the typical person really expect that to be taken away? That's a really bad look for Google. "If we offer something that's good value to you, expect it to be taken away suddenly in the future." Those are not the actions of a company I would want to rely on.

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With modern connected devices, I absolutely do expect for features (or even total functionality) to be removed on a whim by the manufacturer. Cloud services are no different.

Lesson being: do not rely on devices or services that rely on a third party. They absolutely will screw you; it’s only a matter of time.

If you do not believe this, then I would say that you have not been around this industry long enough. There may be rare exceptions, but this should be your rule if you care about the longevity of your software and data.

You see why this is horrific UX and people have good reason to complain about it tho right?

You can't expect customers to go into this as battle-hardened as their opponent.

People have excellent reason to complain about it. But we should still be prepared.

If you don't own the hardware and software stack, you don't own the service.

You may be factually correct, but as a paying customer, this is not acceptable.

Of course it is not acceptable. But I imagine every company out there that has skin in this game would boldly taunt in reply: “whachha gunna do ‘bout it?”

Sure, we could boycott. How often is that ever effective in this modern age? Is it ever, because I don’t think I ever heard of such outside of history books?

Our lawmakers are corrupt and wholly in the pocket of those who would stand to benefit from perpetuating this shameful status quo. From my perspective, there ain’t damn thing we can do to fix it (or a thousand other problems), unless we are ready to start holding them accountable. I think that will take putting some of their heads on pikes.

Well, I’m in Europe, the situation is better here. It certainly is a matter of cultural norms.

Most unlimited services operate like all you can eat buffets. There is some secondary constraint that keeps usage bounded. I.e. the person's ability to eat food.

> unlimited, should the typical person really expect that to be taken away?

Absolutely. The word "unlimited" has been misused by so many companies (especially ISP and mobile) that anyone who has their eyes open should expect it to mean limited.

Also if there is a deal that is exceeding better than other options, don't be surprised when the rules change later.

Remus says it better in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38628966

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