Unlimited Dropbox plan is going away because of crypto miners and resellers
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
I'm often very skeptical of companies reining in their "unlimited" offerings and blaming a small number of data-hogs.
Usually it's just a cash grab by ISPs looking for a flimsy pretext to charge users more money and implement dollar-harvesting data caps.
But I will set aside my skepticism in this case because fuck the NFT-wits and cryptids.
Usually it's just a cash grab by ISPs looking for a flimsy pretext to charge users more money and implement dollar-harvesting data caps.
But I will set aside my skepticism in this case because fuck the NFT-wits and cryptids.
Upvote
311
(328
/
-17)
I get not wanting to play whack-a-mole rule enforcement, but having policies against these things sounds like a good idea anyway. I'm shocked to learn they weren't already disallowing reselling of storage.
Upvote
253
(254
/
-1)
I can't for one second believe that any abuse--surely against the terms of service, even if they have to make changes to the ToS--is not enforceable by DropBox, if they wanted.
Upvote
82
(87
/
-5)
I mean..they sold "unlimited". I'm not sure what they expected to happen. "Most" user's and/or business aren't dicks, but that 1% tends to ruin it for the rest of us. Similar to "unlimited" bandwidth.
However, person's reselling or otherwise "sharing" probably ran across other account limitations, but it can be hard to prove who's sharing and/or just on a trip, etc... or on a VPN. So, limits per account it is since that's waaaay easier to enforce.
15TB for $300'ish/year isn't terrible.
However, person's reselling or otherwise "sharing" probably ran across other account limitations, but it can be hard to prove who's sharing and/or just on a trip, etc... or on a VPN. So, limits per account it is since that's waaaay easier to enforce.
15TB for $300'ish/year isn't terrible.
Upvote
155
(163
/
-8)
It's probably more that their systems for catching it weren't working.
It's probably also more that prior to recently they couldn't afford to not offer the "all you can eat" buffet model for storage because the competition was also doing it. Now that the dropbox competitors have put caps on their own offerings Dropbox can do it too. Prior to that they probably just had to grit their teeth, spend time investigating potential ToS breakers with the tools they had, and live with the fact that some folks were going to get away with abusing the system. A hard cap is a lot easier to enforce than trying to actively hunt for ToS breakers.
Upvote
178
(179
/
-1)
Yeah, when companies use examples of things already blatantly against their terms of service as the reason they're imposing restrictions, it makes me wonder if that's just an excuse. Sometimes it definitely is, like when Comcast used it to try and justify data caps.
And it always seems to be "a small number of users" abusing things that lead to the restrictions. If it's truly a small number, why is it hard for the company to deal with in the first place? If it was a lot of users doing it, that'd definitely be whack-a-mole, but if it's only a few, it wouldn't be.
Upvote
110
(117
/
-7)
First time I've ever heard of Chia mining. And then I googled it -- wow, humans really love just wasting resources.
Upvote
247
(249
/
-2)
“There is never enough storage” - anyone working in IT can tell you that. Users will increase usage to fill any capacity made available.
Upvote
106
(107
/
-1)
An alternative to an absolute limit would be to require any businesses needing more than that that 1 PB to contact them individually and explain their need/general use case and expected usage level. Then, if they needed to go beyond that expected amount, they would have to check in again with Dropbox and re-justify.
Just the existence of such a screen and “busywork” process would deter most of the riff-raff while maintaining existing functionality for those with a legitimate need.
(It would probably require a bit of extra work on Dropbox’s end, though, so they don’t really have much incentive to do such a thing.)
Just the existence of such a screen and “busywork” process would deter most of the riff-raff while maintaining existing functionality for those with a legitimate need.
(It would probably require a bit of extra work on Dropbox’s end, though, so they don’t really have much incentive to do such a thing.)
Upvote
34
(36
/
-2)
Well r/Datahoarder is going to be annoyed. Also Dont offer Unlimited plans if they aren't unlimited. You will have people using it as advertised.
Upvote
124
(135
/
-11)
I'd pay a couple bucks a month if it meant I could sync more than 3 devices, but their bottom paid tier is $10 a month and includes a 2 TB. I barely even need 50 MB of storage for how I use it. I guess enough people go for the 2 Terrabyte plan who use a lot less storage than that, that it makes financial sense for them to keep their pricing model.
Upvote
34
(34
/
0)
I'm sorry, abused? Dropbox offers unlimited storage, but it's abuse to use it as if it's [checks notes] unlimited? Shouldn't the headline rather read "Company offers unrealistic service, then blames its users when it turns out it can't really provide it"?
Upvote
134
(211
/
-77)
I remember reading about it a while ago, but at the time it was more or less theoretical and had a valuation that made Dogecoin look like Bitcoin. I had no idea it was still ongoing, but I guess it makes sense that someone looking for infinite money would abuse an "unlimited storage" service like that.
Upvote
39
(39
/
0)
Yeah it was obviously a troll plot to destroy the availability of storage, and that was on the heels of the pandemic-related shortages. People are fucking awful.
Upvote
63
(65
/
-2)
Upvote
76
(77
/
-1)
For actual business accounts, with hundreds or thousands of accounts, this shouldn't matter too much.
I can't speak for Dropbox but the company I work for uses Google Workspace and we've not been impacted by Google's changes really at all. We have a single digit amount of very high users (multi-tb usage) balanced out by 99% of our users using double digit gb storage across all services.
I can't speak for Dropbox but the company I work for uses Google Workspace and we've not been impacted by Google's changes really at all. We have a single digit amount of very high users (multi-tb usage) balanced out by 99% of our users using double digit gb storage across all services.
Upvote
36
(37
/
-1)
Cargo cult finance needs something of value to convert into crypto tokens. Regular crypto uses wasted electricity and computing power. Chia uses wasted electricity and storage space and hard drives. The more you can waste, the richer you'll become. If I were trying to come up with a satire for ravenous capitalism for a sci-fi novel I wouldn't have come up with crypto because it would have been too on the nose.
Upvote
134
(136
/
-2)
Chia is one of the most terrible ideas in the crypto space, which has no lack of terrible ideas to begin with.
Imagine if mining Bitcoin actually reduced the GPU's usable lifespan down to weeks, or even days.
Upvote
89
(89
/
0)
So the hard cap implies there were people out there using >1 Petabyte? Wow.
As an aside: first I've heard of "Chia mining"
As an aside: first I've heard of "Chia mining"
Upvote
18
(19
/
-1)
When you go to an all you can eat buffet and bring bags to secretly stuff food into the bags and take them out to sell to people from a food truck, you're not complying with the spirit of the offering. And the restaurant can kick you out or even choose to stop offering the buffet if they feel that's the only way to fix the problem.
Dropbox offered these as small business accounts where the small businesses didn't have to worry about hitting storage limits. That was the spirit of the offering. A bunch of folks decided they could operate a scam of some sort - chia mining or reselling storage or whatever - on Dropbox's dime. So they've decided to stop offering the buffet.
Upvote
200
(219
/
-19)
Most likely there were a couple of extreme examples of people abusing the storage space. But the true reason for the rule change is probably because there were hundreds of smaller players reselling storage space. Individually they didn't use much space but together they added up fast. Plus they are essentially stealing business from Dropbox.
I have to imagine there was more than one person using dropbox as a kind of cold storage for their Plex based "cheaper than Netflix" VOD service.
Dropbox were just idiots for not have an Unlimited* service.
Unlimited shall be limited to 1Tb. Additional Unlimited passes are available for purchase.
I have to imagine there was more than one person using dropbox as a kind of cold storage for their Plex based "cheaper than Netflix" VOD service.
Dropbox were just idiots for not have an Unlimited* service.
Unlimited shall be limited to 1Tb. Additional Unlimited passes are available for purchase.
Upvote
35
(38
/
-3)
I bet you get invited to a lot of parties where the host says to drink as much as you want.
Upvote
29
(64
/
-35)
Funny enough, I managed to pick up 100Tb of HDDs for ~$500 after the Chia crash because the market was flooded with drives. The HDDs are usually fine, and I figure it was cheap enough to run in RAID 1 for the redundancy anyways.
Strip-mining damaged SSDs still plague the hardware resale space, though, especially in China and Japan. You should pretty much never, ever buy a pre-2022 vintage SSD online unless you know it comes in a sealed box.
Upvote
49
(51
/
-2)
Can confirm. We have an Isilon with what we thought was plenty of storage. Ha!
Upvote
22
(22
/
0)
yes, I understand subletting not being allowed, but anything else seems fair game to me.
Upvote
17
(34
/
-17)
Don't call it unlimited and be offended when people take your advertising literally 
Upvote
-8
(45
/
-53)
Gern Blaanston
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Businesses want to advertise unlimited everything, in order to attract more customers. But unlimited everything is an unworkable and unsustainable business model. And so, we keep seeing the same thing happening again and again:
A company advertises unlimited everything and then is forced to abandon it. But they don't want to admit that it was a stupid and unworkable idea in the first place. So they blame it on people who were allegedly "abusing" the system. And that's just B.S.
Unlimited means unlimited. Don't advertise something that you can't deliver and that you never had any intention of delivering.
Upvote
43
(71
/
-28)
Meh, par for the course. Marketing people will market. Never believe marketing.
Upvote
11
(17
/
-6)
The offer to drink as much as you want makes sense - unlike the Dropbox offer - because there's a natural limit for how much you can drink. There is no such natural limit for how much data storage you can take. Also, unlike the Dropbox account, people usually don't pay to attend parties, so their relationship with the host is a bit different. (And if they do pay, you can bet your ass they will drink as much as they can.)
Upvote
56
(69
/
-13)
henrythefool
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Not to impugn Dropbox's take on the situation, but a few years ago T-Mo cut off my data for "abusing" their unlimited data plan.
The abuse was using 100GB down for two consecutive months, something I did via terrible deep web shit like streaming music, playing vidya games, and reading ars.
The abuse was using 100GB down for two consecutive months, something I did via terrible deep web shit like streaming music, playing vidya games, and reading ars.
Upvote
58
(62
/
-4)
The extreme end of any resource-usage distribution will always be an occupied by a small number of users. Cutting off the abusers is reasonable— but Dropbox needs to know what the abusers are doing with all that storage and say clearly what identifies them as abusers.
Upvote
16
(19
/
-3)