289
Too many users abused unlimited Dropbox plans, so they’re getting limits
(arstechnica.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
289 points (92.1% liked)
Technology
60108 readers
2179 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
In what world are "unlimited" and "all you can eat" synonymous with "too far"?
"Too far" implies a definite limit, which is the antonym of unlimited and all you can eat, regardless of the business's ability to sustain it. If there is a limit, don't advertise it as unlimited or all you can eat that's false advertisement.
In what world is anything unlimited
In the marketing department apparently.
Companies should stop saying unlimited if we all agree nothing is unlimited, don’t you think?
We should be more responsible with services offered regardless what the service is otherwise. Growing up i remember life time guarantees, they no longer exist because these people who abuse services
Lifetime guarantees are absolutely still a thing. But it’s normally for higher priced items since the quality of the average ware went down.
I agree with you that customers should become more responsible for the decisions they make. But we’ve proven time and time again (for decades if not longer) that customers are not rational actors that know everything about everything. Ads would never work if that was a thing.
But here we are. There are laws against false advertising and words have exact meanings. The fact that “unlimited” is still not false advertising baffles me. It should be.
I guess you’re okay with predatory wordings in product descriptions that target people who don’t understand that things cannot be without limits? Just because they should know better, ignoring the fact you don’t know everything? Where do you draw the line? Would you blindly trust a single drug description saying it cures cancer, though no such thing can ever exist?
No, they no longer exist bc they were never sustainable, but they knew that in the first place and sold it as "life time" bc they knew they could make money by lying to customers. Lying is bad and we all agree businesses shouldn't lie, no?
Whose lifetime. Your lifetime, my lifetime. Maybe the product lifetimw
That's kind of the point: Companies shouldn't be allowed to advertise anything as unlimited when it is, in fact, not.
They shouldn't advertise lots of things but personal responsibility could have resulted in this service still being available so the bigger issue to me is the self regulation. I would bet good money the reason people used this much storage was for commercial reasons which would be abusing a personal use account. Which people should be pissed at rather than the unlimited.
Companies shouldn't be allowed to lie about services, full stop.
They didn't lie. Users could upload whatever they could. But individuals uploaded so much it made the company reassess what they offered. So like in life, the rest of us lose out because a handful of assholes abused a system
You seem to be struggling with the English language and what words mean. This is beyond my ability to help you at this point so have a good day and good luck!
No I'm not. The issue isn't unlimited as the company did offer unlimited storage. You could upload whatever you wanted. The issue was that too many people used so much of it that they ruined the service for everyone. Which is why the issue are the users who abuse a service.
Unlimited doesn't mean "upload what you want to a certain limit", it means "upload what you want, as much as you want".
You're misunderstanding the word unlimited, as countless others before me have already pointed out to you
No I'm understanding that unlimited doesn't mean I shouldn't consider if uploading 30 TB of data would cause problems just like I don't assume free condiment's means I can take every condiment in the restaurant
2 things wrong with that analogy:
Restaurants don't advertise "unlimited condiments".
Condiments aren't the main business of a restaurant.
But if a restaurant offers an all-you-can-eat buffet, there will be people stuffing themselves silly, because that's what they advertised.
Its not a bad analogy because both are services provided by a company. Both are up to the user to determine their usage. Both are services that over consuming of the service makes everyone lose the service. Free condiment's and unlimited data are both do not impose restrictions on customers. But customers should self regulate in both instances. At some point when you're uploading 20 TB you have to stop and wonder when the ride ends just like a normal person would when you're stuffing your purse full of ketchup packets
If the restaurant advertises all-you-can-EAT condiments then it would be within my rights to stuff myself silly on ketchup. But filling my pockets would be against their terms. Similarly, if they advertised "as many ketchup packets as you can take home for $5", they can't cry to me when I bring home their whole supply of ketchup packets.
Similarly, if Dropbox is offering unlimited personal storage, they'd be well within their rights to ban me if I resold it. But using to store 20TB of my own shit is me doing exactly what they advertised.
I wish the world was as utopian as you described. Unfortunately, and I'm sorry to say, that's an extremely naive world view you hold. I hope you won't be taken advantage of by people with less good intentions.
In what world do Nigerian princes email random people and offer to send them millions of dollars? Is it ok to scam old people and idiots because they should know better?