TL;DR: An android application deleted the local copy of my data after I unsubscribed from the cloud service and was banned from discord for doing uncomfortable questions that other users never considered instead of helping me fix the issue.
First of all, let me introduce myself, I’ve been a self-hosted for 5 or more years. I try to set up everything myself and to build my own ecosystem as many others in this community. Except for an app that I was never able to host myself. An android handwritten app to take notes.
The app I use is notewise.dev, an android good-looking app that offered a cloud subscription to sync my notes. Even though It was against my practices and beliefs I subscribed to keep my two devices synchronized. But the cancellation time has come and I didn’t read their knowledge-base to know that my data will be deleted from the device. They even sent me an email telling me that my cloud data will be deleted in 7 days, and of course, didn’t mention that the data will be gone from the device too.
So here comes the outrageous part, and please bear with me and don’t drill me on how I should have known better. Think that I let my guard down and almost lost years of work. I went to their discord to ask for help to the developers with the following arguments and got banned because more users were joining in the discussion.
- Why on earth would an app delete the local copy after I unsubscribe? According to them, It’s to help them keep track of whom has a valid plan. They didn’t were able to code It in any other way. This is what to expect with programmers playing wannabe cloud providers.
- Then They started saying that It’s a bug because It shouldn’t have been deleted from my device until 7 days before the cancellation. So… It’s only half a bug?
- I would love to provide screenshots of their poor crisis management but was ejected from their discord. According to them, for a cloud provider, It’s totally right to delete the data from your device If you stop paying (imagine dropbox doing that).
I manage cancellations of contracts on a daily basis at work, and going to client devices to unconfigure things or delete data would be criminally liable. So I don’t understand how coding an app that way It’s totally right for these people.
The situation right now: given that I was in the 7-day timeframe to avoid data deletion (from cloud) I reactivated my account. I disconnected It from the internet and I’m backing up my data to PDF’s. I plan on doing a GDPR request to ask for my data and to check If they are compliant.
Although I was angry and frustrated, I tried to ask for help, but having a knowledgeable position and asking for industry standards was too much for them. So I was constantly told to not assume bad intentions from the developers. Bad intentions or not, writing a bug in Freshdesk doesn’t make it a feature.
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Wait, so they deleted the data from your device even before your subscription was over?
They couldn’t just disable your access to their cloud once the subscription expired? I’m far from being even a novice dev, but I know you could simply lock a user out of your service lol.
Yep, according to their logic my data was uploaded to their cloud so…
And yes, the notes were downloaded to my devices and synced. My device wasn’t polling from their cloud to access the notes. They were deleted FROM the device because I lost my cloud privileges.
Mob-like businesses and subscriptions.
This rant is 100% correct. We do all (backups, raid expanses, clouds and sync) just to keep our data safe. If a software would remove my own data, from my own device and it would not be some “alpha” app not prepared to be productive, I would be more than pissed. And banning for fair questions is getting more common (I’m looking at you PhotoPrism developers), to the level that fair developers should be praised for their help and work.
Publish their Name lol.
In such cases i dont see it as giving companys a bad time, but protecting your fellow selfhosters / Users
It looks like at one time they offered both on-device and on-cloud storage. It also looks like they went to “cloud-only” storage at some point, thus the “upgrade” path that was mentioned in your WBM link. Companies evolve and change as do their products. It looks like they started offering a lot more “collaboration” tools and likely found it easiest to manage a single version of the document in the cloud versus syncing it to everyones device (also cheaper).
Based on the tone here, I imagine you went into their discord a bit “hot” and when you heard stuff you didn’t like it escalated, so it’s not surprising you got yeeted. This isn’t “crisis management” for them, this is dealing with an upset former customer.
According to them, for a cloud provider, It’s totally right to delete the data from your device If you stop paying (imagine dropbox doing that).
Dropbox is forgiving, other cloud providers aren’t. You stop paying, you are now a cyber squatter taking up disk and not paying for it. You will lose your data, it’s just a matter of time. Some are on the next day of your subscription ending, others have some buffer. There should be NO expectation your data will persist after you stop paying them and your plan has run it’s course. Assuming your data will still be there after you stop paying is on you, not the provider.
I manage cancellations of contracts on a daily basis at work, and going to client devices to unconfigure things or delete data would be criminally liable.
Not necessarily. Just because you paid for a service at one point in time, doesn’t mean you get to continue using that service forever. If you “cancel contracts” daily at work, then you would know this, or maybe the contracts you are working with are very narrow in scope. It’s normal for data to be dumped after you stop paying. Some providers will hold on to that data for a period in case you change your mind and make it easier to come back, but there is no expectation for stuff to continue working on SaaS after you stop making payments. Again, that’s on you.