Over a decade ago, I pointed out that as Google kept trying to worm its way deeper into our lives, a key Achilles’ heel was its basically non-existent customer service and unwillingness to ev…
To be fair, I would agree it was false advertising if Google was terminating accounts of large users. However, they ended the entire plan / service, with significant notice, so it’s less ‘false advertising’ and more ‘we can’t afford to do this, because jackasses’.
They put users of the entire plan in read only mode with, as far as I can tell, no deadline in sight. When a deadline was finally enforced, it was within a week, which is not significant notice at all for data deletion.
Being told “your data will be read only” and then, without notice, being given a deadline to extricate your data that is physically impossible for most users is not much different from having your account deleted. Both will inevitably have the same outcome.
I’m not sure if you’re aware that the unlimited plan was sunsetted two years ago. Two years notice seems like plenty of time to have set up a new backup system. That said, my main and original point is just that this whole incident is a classic example of a tragedy of the commons.
Unlimited does not mean “there’s a limit but we won’t tell you what it is until you reach it”. Corporations need to stop using it that way.
It’s really not hard to avoid false advertising. Just tell people what you’re actually prepared to offer. Figure it out before selling it.
To be fair, I would agree it was false advertising if Google was terminating accounts of large users. However, they ended the entire plan / service, with significant notice, so it’s less ‘false advertising’ and more ‘we can’t afford to do this, because jackasses’.
They put users of the entire plan in read only mode with, as far as I can tell, no deadline in sight. When a deadline was finally enforced, it was within a week, which is not significant notice at all for data deletion.
Being told “your data will be read only” and then, without notice, being given a deadline to extricate your data that is physically impossible for most users is not much different from having your account deleted. Both will inevitably have the same outcome.
I’m not sure if you’re aware that the unlimited plan was sunsetted two years ago. Two years notice seems like plenty of time to have set up a new backup system. That said, my main and original point is just that this whole incident is a classic example of a tragedy of the commons.
We’ll just roll this into the other conversation.