Comment by compounding_it
2 months ago
My 2 cents:
There was a time when I accidentally deleted some photos of which I had only one copy. I blamed myself for being stupid not having a copy but also money was tight for additional drives.
Then there is this: depending on a service provider and then blaming them for something like this. The problem is that now you are losing trust in service providers (of which there should be little to begin with) and on top of that you are also blaming yourself for depending on them. However you have to create a trust model where your fault allows you to have a service helping you with it while a fault at the service provider will allow you to restore data from your end too, getting the best of both worlds.
MacOS and Windows / Google with always logged in systems that lock you out completely at their will is an example of how your devices are not owned by you to begin with and then trusting them with your data as well means your digital life is basically owned by them completely.
Now imagine that there are no humans to solve this but endless LLM bots that respond with generic responses because the LLM has never seen a problem like this. I want to point out that owning your data and hardware is really important if you depend on it and your business especially does.
I think this argument conflates “what’s possible” with “what’s reasonable”.
In a complex modern society, we can’t all be expected to have backup plans to the Nth degree.
Is it possible to bore for my own water supply, install solar+inverter/battery backup for electricity, get a medical degree to treat my own wounds? Sure but most would say it’s not reasonable.
It’s why we have regulations and ombudsmans for healthcare, transport, finance, water provider, electricity providers, communications providers etc.
Oddly missing from that list is critical technical infrastructure providers like Microsoft, Apple and Google.
I actually really like the idea of a Digital Services Provider Ombudsman, who you can go to if you feel like you've been wronged by a big tech corp. They have a "way in" that consumers potentially don't, and they have the capacity to levy fines in certain circumstances. I love this! What's preventing this from happening, other than no governmental pressure to make it happen? I might write to my MP...
Yeah that’s a great idea
> However you have to create a trust model where your fault allows you to have a service helping you with it while a fault at the service provider will allow you to restore data from your end too, getting the best of both worlds.
This is why I suggested to have a dual model. Leveraging the cloud and services is really a good choice as long as you have backup systems running independently as well. Your backups may not be as powerful and full fledged as the main provider but in case of emergencies like these, you still own your data and hardware and don’t panic.
In this example a weekly backup of iCloud to a drive connected to a pi with rsync could be a simple solution. 6tb is not even that much given that 500$ gift cards are being used by the author. The backup is not great but it is easy to see why it’s also necessary to own your data.
That is in no way a reasonable suggestion. You’re suggesting a raspberry pi (first red flag) along with a command line program. This is not reasonable in any sense of the word. Imagine me suggesting that everyone should be set up their own unraid server to make sure they can still stream movies and videos if Netflix goes down. Imagine me telling you you should set up a foundry to build your own engines because you can’t trust big car manufacturers. This is the case with everything in your life
Regulations exist because it’s impossible for any one person to handle everything that needs to be handled.
5 replies →
> Is it possible to bore for my own water supply, install solar+inverter/battery backup for electricity, get a medical degree to treat my own wounds? Sure but most would say it’s not reasonable.
Bad analogy. A better one would be having a torch in case of power cuts (done that) having some extra food in the house in case the grocery delivery fails, having some basic medical supplies in the house, having mobile internet connection in case your broadband fails etc.
Having backups of your stuff is an emergency fallback
Ordinary backups don't aim to replace the full service. When you have a stock of food, you don't have enough to last you a lifetime. You have enough to weather a storm. The equivalent for tech would probably be having an offline copy of your "essential" data, but not of every photo you ever took. It would protect you from temporary internet disruption, or if a provider suspended you for a few days, but not if they banned you completely with no recourse.
> Is it possible to bore for my own water supply, install solar+inverter/battery backup for electricity, get a medical degree to treat my own wounds? Sure but most would say it’s not reasonable.
I’m feeling attacked. Here I was thinking my lifelong work of self sufficiency for my family was completely reasonable until you came along. Thanks a lot!
Best take in this whole thread
It’s also possible this person does have some personal or external backups of stuff like the photos, but they’re not going to mention it here as the existence of those doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been extremely wronged. It also won’t help with their developer account etc.