Author Topic: "unlimited"  (Read 6823 times)

ober

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"unlimited"
« on: December 15, 2008, 11:25:42 AM »
http://degeberg.com/2008/12/dreamhost-to-infinity-and-beyond/

This is a blog of one of the other admins at PHPFreaks (www.phpfreaks.com).  Figured some of you would get a laugh out of it.

Mike

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2008, 11:55:15 AM »
I didn't get all the way through it but the guy sounds like a douche bag.  Unlimited doesn't mean infinite.  It means that they aren't going to limit you beyond what is technically feasible.

VBprogrammer

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2008, 12:09:32 PM »
Wait, is that guy for real?

Steve

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2008, 01:35:20 PM »
Read any unlimited agreement and it will say pretty much exactly what mike just said.

Even my cell phone. For example I have att. My text, calls, etc are all completely unlimited. But if you read the contract you will see they define something like 99999999 kb a month of data to be excessive and not deemed as acceptable use. So if I hit that limit guess what, I'm cut off for the month.
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

ober

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2008, 03:49:51 PM »
He is for real... he thinks he is making a valid argument when I think he's just being an ass.

Mike

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2008, 03:51:25 PM »
Oh thank god.  For a minute there I thought you were on his side.

What might be a better term to use is unrestricted or unmetered but unlimited is pretty common

hans

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2008, 05:32:24 PM »
I'm sort of with the guy. Definitions actually are important and we often times (in IT especially) muck up words to mean multiple things making discussion difficult sometimes.

Unlimited in the definition sense is not what these people mean. They are selling as much as you need following the rules. Even though most people are willing to forgo the definition and understand the meaning for the nice short word that fits in the table cell, technically this guy is right. Just because they're too lazy to find (or make up) and appropriate word, doesn't mean they're right in using it.

On the other hand, clearly this guy doesn't have anything better to do.


I'm sort of a word critic though. I'm always arguing with people on what we should call certain data fields and such because I believe naming things appropriately is important. Often times it's not really that easy since you're trying to fit too much into a single word or short phrase, but it is worth the effort because it helps you really understand/define what your doing.

I think they should switch the phrase to something like "lots".
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Mike

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2008, 05:46:39 PM »
technically this guy is right
Only if he could supply an infinite amount of data to fill up the infinite amount of disk space.  Until then the company only has to provide enough space for his data as he needs it.

Mike

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2008, 05:47:56 PM »
Personally I loved their response:
Quote
Let’s make a deal. If you can find a way to use infinite disk space (within the constraints of our ToS, of course, which is hardly
unreasonable. We’re a web host and we expect you to use the space for web hosting…not movie backups, not puppy mills, and not radish farms. Pretty standard, even if you want to argue crazy semantics), we’ll shoot down an alien craft or something and find a way to provide you with infinite storage.

Steve

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2008, 06:22:06 PM »
:rofl2:
hey ethic if you and i were both courting lily allen..... oh wait, which one of us has a relationship that lasted more than the bus ride home?

hans

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2008, 06:41:39 PM »
technically this guy is right
Only if he could supply an infinite amount of data to fill up the infinite amount of disk space.  Until then the company only has to provide enough space for his data as he needs it.

Actually, no. He was right in that all he has to do is fill it up beyond their capacity (proving they lie), which would be pretty easy to do (not within the terms of service, but that's part of his argument too). There's also probably some way in the TOS that he could create very large image files and upload them to the server too, or make lots of backup copies on the disk of large files or something that would be "allowed" in the TOS.

I'm really quite surprised that they've taken the time to argue with him as far as they did. Now if he was really serious, he'd put together a class action lawsuit, in classic American fashion.
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hans

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2008, 06:48:30 PM »
And I read (well, skimmed really) the blog post from the owner or whatever, and he's horrible at analogies. He has some very bad logic in the post on why it's OK to "oversell."

I've always thought it was supposed to be "undersell, over deliver."
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Mike

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #12 on: December 15, 2008, 06:55:50 PM »
technically this guy is right
Only if he could supply an infinite amount of data to fill up the infinite amount of disk space.  Until then the company only has to provide enough space for his data as he needs it.

Actually, no. He was right in that all he has to do is fill it up beyond their capacity (proving they lie), which would be pretty easy to do (not within the terms of service, but that's part of his argument too). There's also probably some way in the TOS that he could create very large image files and upload them to the server too, or make lots of backup copies on the disk of large files or something that would be "allowed" in the TOS.

I'm really quite surprised that they've taken the time to argue with him as far as they did. Now if he was really serious, he'd put together a class action lawsuit, in classic American fashion.
If they can keep providing space faster than he could fill it up, then how are they lying?

ober

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2008, 08:54:08 PM »
And I read (well, skimmed really) the blog post from the owner or whatever, and he's horrible at analogies. He has some very bad logic in the post on why it's OK to "oversell."

I've always thought it was supposed to be "undersell, over deliver."
To be fair, the kid is only 17 or 18, and he's Danish.  Pretty smart programmer though.

VBprogrammer

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Re: "unlimited"
« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2008, 08:58:35 PM »
I guess he is right in that they are exploiting a flaw in the human condition. No I don't download that much, I probably could live with a 5GB / month broadband connection but something in me hates the idea that the one month I do download a lot of stuff (say, new Ubuntu distribution + all the SDK's and stuff that I need) I will go over the limit and get hit by the crazy charge which is probably 100 x (monthly payment / GB allowance)!