Too many users abused unlimited Dropbox plans, so they’re getting limits::Some people have taken “as much space as you need” too literally.

240 points

You can’t abuse something that has no limit. Stop calling things unlimited and then blaming users when they are not.

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32 points

I read somewhere about someone who took a zip file, copied it and zipped it with the copy over and over again until the file size ballooned to petabytes. I would consider that sort of pointless use of storage to be abuse.

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35 points

Then put an * and say that there are a couple well documented exceptions, like zip bombing or don’t call it unlimited and call it up to 100TB for x dollars.

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2 points

Aaaand? It’s like if phone companies called dial-up abuse.

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-68 points
*

Sure you can, they did it here. All you can eat buffet doesn’t mean I should take all the crab legs every time they bring out a new tray.

You either get it or you don’t. But these people who abuse and exploit things are why we will never have nice things

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68 points

Sounds like your buffet should plan for more crab legs to be made each time

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-44 points
*

Why, you know there isn’t mythical endless and free source of crab legs right?

Nobody should reasonably think there is. “Endless” is advertising. You’re suppose to still respect that its a business and that other people will want some as well.

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56 points

Just don’t call those things unlimited then?

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-44 points
*

Calling unlimited shouldn’t mean that people upload things that are not reasonable. The issue here isn’t calling it unlimited because a reasonable person gets that its a gimmick that will have limits. Pushing it to that limit is the problem.

I feel anyone should assume there are limits because there is nothing in this universe that is unlimited.

I can reason what it actually means and that there is a point I would be abusing the system.

The amount of cool things I have lost out on because another person abused a system might be close to unlimited. It gets tiring after a while. Anyone remember steam sales before they were forced to offer refunds and people started to abuse that.

Id rather not have guard rails everywhere in life to stop me from being abusive. But abusive people exist and force the rest of us to live with the consequences of their actions

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47 points

Unlimited is unlimited. It’s what was advertised. I am sorry Dropbox failed to look up the word before using it in marketing. The customers are using it as the advertising said it could be. Not the fault of the customer for using to product as intended.

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13 points

Yarrr…tis not a man. Tis a remorseless eating machine!

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1 point

This is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since The Never-Ending Story.

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4 points

You’re referring to Mandarin Buffet aren’t you

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-7 points

Yes, God I love that place.

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195 points
*

I just don’t get it. If it’s unlimited - in what universe is using it beyond 15TB considered abuse?

I get the reseller part, I get the stupid chia mining part. But if they can say that was the problem - then get rid of those users, as clearly you have already identified them. Don’t shift the blame away from your dumbass marketing team onto your users and play an innocent company.

I can’t believe how much support dropbox is getting. People seem to accept, without questioning, every bollocks pr statement these days.

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53 points

I worked for a company that was offering unlimited storage to its too tier customers.

I brought it up in a meeting when we first started talking about it.

“Okay but you don’t mean unlimited. That’s bad PR waiting to happen.”

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13 points

What did they say to your remark?

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42 points

Roughly

“what do you mean?”

“You cannot offer something that doesn’t exist. If Amazon decided to become a client, we’d be in a world of hurt.”

“It’s fine none of our clients use more than a few hundred gigs”

This was in 2018. They still offer unlimited storage. So I guess, what do I know?

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13 points

Got thrown out of a window

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17 points
*

Especially since 15TB isn’t all that big. It’s not tiny, but it’s also not out of the reach of a reasonably high end computer, or for a video editor who might need a lot of space for raws/recordings.

It’s not like they’re looking at users eating up Petabytes of data, or something silly, where some restriction might be understandable.

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11 points

Wait, the cap is 15TB? I run a small image processing business and I’m right about there with my businesses data, currently.

…guess its time to NAS, but I’d really rather pay someone else than assume the hassle

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3 points

A NAS really isn’t that much of a hassle once you get it up and running. I’ve got a Synology DS918+ and love it. Although I’m sure you’d want something bigger (and newer) for supporting a small business.

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How the fuck do you abuse unlimited access? This is just a company blaming an idea that was always going to be unsustainable on their customers and not their own damn lack of forethought.

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17 points

It was a business plan and they found hardly any of the plan subscribers were actually businesses, and I’m guessing reselling your unlimited data was against the ToS.

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It was a business plan and they found hardly any of the plan subscribers were actually businesses

And why the fuck would that matter? If they can’t handle some random’s porn and piracy collection, how the fuck would they handle a legit business? lol

Reselling an account would hurt their bottom line, but still have no effect on providing the storage. Imposing a limit doesn’t stop that though, other than perhaps by making the product worthless and therefore unworthy of reselling.

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4 points

why the fuck would that matter?

Because it “hurt their bottom line” in some measurable way. Yeah I’d be pissed if I were a subscriber of this plan. But either you accept the caveats of using someone else’s infrastructure or you roll your own. ¯\(ツ)

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3 points

Because some people where using it for crypto mining some coins that depend on storage space.

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-4 points

This was dumb AF anyways. If you really have a problem with a few large accounts, you just make their access rates to their data atrocious. There’s no way the plan guarantees an access speed.

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4 points

They didn’t mean unlimited use. They meant “sign up, forget about it and pay us forever”.

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106 points

Corporate bootlickers: OMG they’re actually using our unlimited service as if they were unlimited. THIS IS ABUSE!1!

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-7 points

Or there is actually a limit to storage.

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24 points

You’re right. Then we agree that Dropbox promoting “unlimited storage” is false advertising.

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90 points

You can’t abuse unlimited. That’s why it’s called “UNlimited.” I hate this two faced, corporate back sludge that always, and I mean always, puts it on the consumer as if they did something wrong. When in reality, it’s the company that is redlining or needs to boost those unsustainable goal of doubling revenue every quarter, ad infinitum.

The real narrative is Dropbox needs money so they are scrambling to cut every expense. No matter what spin they put on it.

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27 points

If they were just honest about it and say “this is expensive so we need to put the prices up”, I would have a lot more respect for that.

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6 points

“Times are tough we just can’t do unlimited anymore.” What’s so hard about being honest in business?!?

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2 points

Bad PR, that’s why.

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-4 points

You can DDOS using an “unlimited” VPS, and DDOS the same provider. Is that abuse? Of course it is. You can’t expect a for profit to allow people to upload petabytes of junk all at once.

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5 points

It depends on the ToS. DDoSing might be considered unreasonable use.

But if you’re using VPS to stream 4K content 24/7, that would be heavy and reasonable use.

Similarly, if I take the unlimited Dropbox plan and resell it, that’s probably against the ToS.

If I’m uploading 50TB of blu ray rips for backups, that’s… Heavy use but entirely acceptable based on what they’re advertising.

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0 points

For your last sentence, Dropbox can’t tell whether those are legitimate backups that the DMCA gives you the right to, or rips from a piracy site. Uploading data that’s all 1’s is just dumb and is designed to “test” the server, in the same way a teenager might test their stepdad.

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3 points

Just violating the TOS, which means you are using a service or product outside its intended usage.

Downloading from a plan that has no cap, even if you download a lot, is simply making use of the service for its intended purpose. (Which obviously isn’t to DDOS someone.)

Why you’re defending DB here, a faceless corporation, is probably a better point of discussion.

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0 points

You shouldn’t try to benchmark some random server by uploading and downloading files that consist of the bytes FF repeatedly. Store all the crap you want, just don’t ruin it for others.

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