Jeremy Zawodny: “In related news, some guy had 300MB of ‘CRUCIAL data’ stored in Gmail and found his account deleted. He had no backups and claims that he ‘fell victim to Google.’ He ends by asking for advice because ‘this is an emergency for me.’ How about getting a clue? All I can think is ‘what kind of dipshit doesn’t backup his CRUCIAL data?!’ Seriously. Gmail is a free beta service.”
Interesting. Is my friend a dipshit too? Am I? Isn’t the whole point of software-of-a-service that you can just put your stuff “in the cloud” and let someone else (you know, someone with hundreds of millions of dollars of computing infrastructure and thousands of employees and—presumably anyway—some sort of backup policy) take care of it for you so it “just works”? Isn’t that what Google, Yahoo, etc. have been trying to sell us? It’s certainly compelling to me, which is why I’ve been moving in that direction myself. Interesting, though, that when they screw up, they call us dipshits for following them. I guess that’s what the cop-out “beta” moniker is designed to do—put all your stuff here, but if we screw up, don’t blame us, you dipshit, it’s a free beta service!
Technorati Tags: gmail, google, softwareasaservice, web20, yahoo
Yes, you are stupid. So is your friend. Unless it states “You can jump off a cliff, we will save you” then take precautions. Precautions like wondering “Hey, what happens if a server goes down? Do they have backups?”
Nobody to blame but you.
look at http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/terms_of_use.html
Google also reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue the Service with or without notice at any time and without any liability to you.
If this reflects the attitude of the typical software-as-a-service vendor, software-as-a-service is going to be utterly useless to the general population. -ian
Lol… I thought everyone knew that Google is the Devil. Seriously… how can a company (even though they’re “innovative”) sell nothing but ad space and be valued as highly as Google is?
The day of reckoning is upon us… soon the world will realize that there is a limit to the value that Media companies provide.
As for me, backups are a simple thing… you save your data to disk, tape, dvd, or online storage THAT YOU CONTROL (or you PAY for) on a regular basis… simple as that, if you don’t they it’s your fault. If you don’t pay for it then expect to get what you pay for… if you do pay for it then you at least have some standing to go after them legally.
Like this… I give you a car for free, fill up the tank with gas for free, and hand you the keys… you drive it and it breaks down… you gonna expect me to fix it? I think not and even if you expect me to it really doesn’t matter because I’m not obligated to unless I told you I’d do free maintenance.
I’m sorry that you’ve misunderstood the service that has been offered but there truly is no one to blame but yourself.
“software-as-a-service-for-a-fee” will last, but the free stuff won’t.
Heh probably ms is paying some blogger to tell such stuff.. :-P
But really i don’t think that google is deleting gmail accounts without any reasons.
As I said in the other post, I am a paying customer, just not one that pays directly. In other words, by virtue of the fact that I’m using their sites, they’re able to sell my attention to their advertiser network. That’s worth far more than a measly $20 per year. -ian
How many times have I said, the future is you have everything with you, not relying on software as a service. Leaving everything in the hands of one service somewhere in the universe is just plain stupid. People who lose their Microsoft keys are screwed because their MS music doesn’t work. People who put everything in their yahoo/gmail account are screwed when they don’t have/permanently lose access.
I was a lawyer for years and I never could understand how tech heads could always be so goddamned naive about everything. Business is business.
It could well be that the software-as-a-service model is fundamentally flawed (I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I’ve taken a big step toward concluding that the past few months). I do find it interesting that the argument is coming from a Yahoo employee, arguably one of the companies that stands to gain the most if software does become a service. -ian
Ian, you keep talking about this GMail failure as though it’s somehow related to “software as a service”. I don’t see the connection. The service provided by GMail is *storage*, or *hosting*, and access to that storage via an application, as a service.
“Software as a service” would be more like providing the service of *writing* software on a service-based arrangement, and licensing the software freely but not exclusively to the customer who paid.
If you refer to hosting providers as “software as a service” vendors, you’re muddying the term for those who actually *do* provide the service of writing software.
I’ve really seen nothing about the new economy, Google, web services, or anything that’s come along with it to contradict the old and conservative analysis: If you don’t trust them personally and you don’t have a contract stipulating what service they will continue to provide you, you’d better plan as if it could go away at any moment.
Corporations are still corporations. Even when they have personal loyalty, that can change overnight with acquisitions, management shakeups, and stockholder pressure. If you don’t have a contract, you have no assurance. You’re just hoping. That’s one thing if it’s a friend, but I wouldn’t want to trust the integrity of my data to a hope.
I don’t think the future of this model lies in anything like you’re describing. I don’t think it relies on trusting other people with your data. I think it instead relies on making all vendors increasingly interchangeable because your data is in open formats using open standards, so you can pipe the data that you want into the services that are useful at the time, and still recover it and give it to other services should your needs change or the services change.
But then, there’s no way on earth you could get me to use Gmail for my e-mail. So call me paranoid.
Ben: I’m using the generally accepted defintion of the term “software as a service”. Sorry you don’t agree with it. -ian
Russ: Absolutely. I want to put my stuff “in the cloud” and forget about it, but I also want the freedom to move my stuff somewhere else if I’m not happy with the service I’m getting from my current provider. Data portability will be the open source of the software-as-a-service world. -ian
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I am a gmail user and I use it to store the odd file and bookmark list. I consider Gmail a service just like how a Bus is a service that can transport me from one side of the city to another. Taking it further, I regard myself as a “customer” of Google.
I’m with Ian Murdock in that unless Google can offer some sort of redress for f**kups, even on the part of it’s users, then it’s not going to fly with Joe Average user.
In the UK, some folks invested unwisely in company pensions without reading the small print in the guidance booklets. Years pass and the company director runs off with all the money before dying and the pensioners are told the T&C means you have no redress. The small print in the original guidance booklets, in tiny font just over the copywright notice on the booklets, also say this.
No one really reads all the T&C and any service who holds their customers to the strict letter of the T&C without some flexibility will probably not survive in todays world.
Tough cheese for the guy who had his Google account deleted (it’s not mentioned here how it got deleted, was it through lack of use to keep the account fresh?).
Regards,
Imran Chaudhry
PS. thanks for debian :o)
“That’s a very scary story! Could probably make a movie out of it!!”
Really?
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Yes, that guy was a dipshit. I wouldn’t dream of trusting Gmail for back up. Not to mention, Google had no intention of Gmail to be used in that manner and has even stated so in the past (they’ve since somewhat changed their tune).
But regardless I’d still not trust any online backup. I like the idea a lot and I even have an Xdrive account, but there is no way I’d trust them as my sole backup.