[I Was In Support Of Sync 2.0, Right Up Till They Broke A Promise]

@HobbledGrubs

 

2. mmh. well i think it depends on the definition of folders. since bittorrent inc argues the way that you still can synchronize unlimited folders, just that you are not able to have them in more than 10 different places. and that is the point where they "cheated" before you could do that. have unlimited separate places to save your files in. now  just maximum 10 without any ways like symlinks etc.

but to compare you could see dropbox or onedrive or google drive which all have just one separate folder. and people never complaint about them.

well to be fair you can share unlimited files with them which you cant with bittorrent sync since you re just allowed 10 shares maximum. (am i right here? or are the 10 folders are just the maximum separate owner folders? and shared folders are unlimited?)

 

i already suggested to increase that separate folder limit to a reasonable size by e.g. calculating the separate folder limit between normal users and power users. or removing that limit. and minimum explaining themselves including apologizing.

 

5. yep true. i think that you can easily generalize on nationality. most people dont see that america has huge problems because of the parot act thingie. every american company has to give information out. that s what i thought. (open source, closed source, encryption standards, blabla)

[I Was In Support Of Sync 2.0, Right Up Till They Broke A Promise]

Some commenters have suggested that the people posting here are the noisy minority.  Why don't we have a poll to see what a larger number are thinking?

 

I have just spent 2 weeks testing syncthing which is unfortunately not ready to handle my requirements.  I sync 5TB of data over 14 nodes and syncthing couldn't handle it.  Development seems very active on the project but on identical hardware it couldn't keep up with the data. 

 

My guess is that Bittorrent feel that there is no real competitor on the market yet who offer exactly the functionality of btsync.  They have a captive market and this release is calculated risk. 

 

Lost trust and disappointment are the key issues here.  All the time invested into setting up btsync and getting friends and family into it now feels like a betrayal to them as well, except I am responsible.

 

1. The new limitations should have been announced ages ago.

2. The arguments about 10 folders being a feature or not are semantic, pedantic, and don't make me feel better.

3. Paying a subscription for upgrades that may or may not appear is crazy, the software already does what I want. 

4. Saying that we can keep using 1.4 for free is only good until the first security flaw is not patched.

5. Sending all our shares via Bittorrent's servers in a post Edward Snowdon world is nuts.

 

I am another angry user who couldn't stay quiet.

Exactly. But that would probably not be representative, since only people caring about how many people actually are in favor btsync and against are relevant for that. Most users who don't care would probably not even consider checking out the forums.

That said, the only really relevant indicator would probably be the sales numbers, that only bittorrent inc. knows of.

 

Don't know, but i've read about performance issues as well, when it comes to high numbers of files.

 

My opinion as well.

 

Yes, that's my concern as well. That includes, as already stated from various other people here, lost trust generally means lost trust in security as well since it is closed source. (backdoor, nsa, ...)

 

1. yes

2. i don't know what you mean here.

3. not agreeing with this.

4. yes

5. well, if you think that way, then you should probably not use any american software at all and go back to the stone age. there are quite a few articles stating the way bittorrent sync works. and that includes encrypted data from bittorrent sync to the servers. so bittorrent sync will not know what s being send. (requirement would be that the encryption is safe from any institutions; keyword: RSA scandal) also you can set your own relay host, i believe -> correct me if i m wrong, but you certainly can select not to use it.

 

 

Btw, i want to say, that i think bittorrent inc. should soon say something about this issue. just my thinking.

[I Was In Support Of Sync 2.0, Right Up Till They Broke A Promise]

I'd say let your money do the support for you, if their model works and people are paying up then so be it, but if people are leaving them  then they will have to do the necessary adjustment.

 

I personally have no problem with whatever they want to do with their marketing strategy and whatever they see fit. My only real concern is that they weren't completely truthful when it comes to 2.0 (which is still okay with me), however, it is actually the action from the company that worries me. Never mind the subscription fee, or whatever limitation they did to that software. I don't feel that I can trust this company, and with their software not being open source, how I can trust that they didn't have some sort of tracking code for backdoor? That is my biggest concern.

Totally agree with that. That's what i thought as well. If it works it works, if not then not. Problem here trust is important. More like control. -> 3rd party auditing on security each year.

 

On top of that i think that the folder limit really is a problem. It should have been much higher. If you use dropbox and just have 2 gb, but share lots of folders, for projects etc. you get everything for free. (ofc security is the issue here, but still) so what i think should be possible is, when you accept a share from somebody else then this should not count towards the 10 folders limit. I think, that is quite a reasonable point. Otherwise many people will see this program just as a sync app for their own purpose, without sharing files. just max. 10 folders, which i believe is quite ok for most, if they don't share files.

[I Was In Support Of Sync 2.0, Right Up Till They Broke A Promise]

I think you misunderstand somthing (I don't fell like starting a discussion), but most people have a problem with the subscription model. I would not mind paying to get a license for 2.0.x which means that I'll get all the minor releases for 2.0.x as part of my license, when they bring out 2.1 or 3.0 then I'll have to pay for a new license if I want updates. I do that for all the software I used, but the if you don't pay after 12 months it will stop working.

 

That is also in some cases called ransom-ware..... Adobe is also involved in this business.....

 

Subscription based software is something the devil invented, and it is counter productive ... in this case I could suspect that BT might not sell as many licenses as they expect.

 

I don't see why BT couldn't just leave version 1.x as it was and release a version 2.x which have all the new funky stuff, but then again I never see eye to eye with marketing people and/or developer who get a "great".....

 

As for cloud based services; It is not only in Germany, as far as I know it's most countries in the european union which have a problem with cloud based storage. And MS is currently fighting an court order to hand out data to a US court from their datacenter in Ireland.

No i didn't misunderstood it . And yes i understand that people don't want to pay for a subscription model. I would agree with that too, but for me it is just more convenient and i believe it is cheaper as well. I think it also depends on the people, since it is another way of thinking. I am pretty sure that another company could have sold that product for easily 150 USD as for version 2.x. If you rethink it, it might be cheaper even to "rent" it. But then it might be better to give both possibilities.

They of course did it to keep an income in the long-term. That s why i mentioned, that in case they ran out of features to implement, the company would go down, since they are not offering anything else. It is just an Abonnement (i understand the difference to a service though). If you don't want it, then you might have to go, or either wait until Bittorrent Inc. changes their offerings. Wanting that, would definitely mean, writing threads here on the forums and commenting and showing interest in that (basically protesting online).

 

But then i thought: well this thread was actually speaking about deceiving their user-base. Not about the subscription model. Though indirectly it concerns many, since they need to buy it now to unlock the separate folder limit feature. Though honestly i think, it is just fair for them to make that limit, because people need some reason to buy it, otherwise that would be a stupid sales strategy. Honestly. I can understand them (in putting up a limit feature for separate folders). But i also would say they did a bad job at marketing and community communication. If you promise something, you hold it. Simple as that. That's why i absolutely understand those people. I just can't stand people, who simply use that reason, because of their greediness. Or of people, that just want to say something, because they need to act up. (quite a few comments here sounded like that to me)

 

Well my opinion is that subscription model is not evil at all. (but actually reading your comment and thinking about service vs program, i have to admit, you do have a point. though they still offer a small service including linking devices and so on, which does help a lot)

 

"as many licences as expected": yep, i agree with that.

 

I don't understand this paragraph with "who get a "great"".

 

Yes, exactly. I know about this, because i am working for a company, that has to deal with that a lot. And i know quite a few other companies that have problems as well. I also heard that about Ireland. I didn't know though, that the court could access the resources and data in Europe. I thought the main problem was, that MS mirrors that data from Ireland to America in case of data loss (or something similar).

 

 

Two points. I would be happy to pay for this product. They are not offering something that warrants a subscription, and are charging an obscene amount for something that requires very little server time or bandwidth on their part. This isn't a VPN, it's not a media streaming service. Those things, particularly the latter, have very high costs involved. Bittorrent, Inc needs to pay programmers, maybe office space and run some servers to host their software.

 

This is a decentralized solution where the customer pays virtually all of the costs. The are offering a program, NOT a service. I don't want a service. 

 

And deceiving your userbase is absolutely a serious thing. 

 

If they want my business, the can rescind the 10 folder limit (which I would construe as an apology), and offer a product that does not require subscribing for a price that is reasonable.

See on the comments on the first quote.

 

I know. That's why i think they should also offer a single payment for one version. But i am not of exactly the same opinion to define that programs can just be bought by single payments. I know of Outbank who do the same. And a few other examples. I think in some cases it makes sense and in other cases it doesn't. -> Office 365 (if you just look at the Windows Office Versions not the online service)

Not all the costs. No. Linking the devices through internet e.g.. And guaranteeing, that the service keeps up.

 

Absolutely, especially if they are so stupid to first seriously promise it openly. They could have kept it secretly like many other companies do it. I think Bittorrent inc. was just not thinking in the right way, before and being super anti-commercial. But that went South.

 

Well, again this topic is not to discuss subscription models actually, but talking about deceiving the user-base.

 

The subscription model implies that your (your? think again) program will stop functioning as soon as BTinc decides to pull a plug, or even just flip a bit. Basically, you are on the wrong site of a remote control.

Well it is basically rented, true. And yes, other companies do that too. If you don't agree with that, again: protest and hope for the best, or go. I agreed in adding an option to add a single buy option, which price is much higher.

 

BUT: this is not to discuss subscription model. ...

 

Btw, protest i believe works the best, if 1. not buying the product 2. commenting on the forums 3. buying another competitor product 4. making constructive comments, e.g. why is it stupid to have just a subscription model.

[I Was In Support Of Sync 2.0, Right Up Till They Broke A Promise]

Attention! - Long statement ahead ^^ - Attention!

 

I am a pro user, who discovered Bittorrent Sync recently (2 months ago) and i was really impressed by the sheer simplicity of this product, that just works (like Apple products, well not anymore that much, but that's offtopic). I used the 1.4 Beta version and tried the 2.0.52 Alpha as well. I tested it on various devices and considered (and still considering) it for my family (parents, etc.) to put on a NAS. Also to include this at work would be awesome.

 

I have to say, that there is a point, that Bittorrent Inc. did not stay true to what they said, and in my point of view it is very important to apologize, though they don't need to give out lifetime subscriptions etc.. but i would say to thank everyone that helped in the past and to make a statement that is not based on a half-truth (like there was on page 1 in this thread) would be mandatory. This would be good marketing and would really help to fight against this negative current atm.

 

Now to the site, that just complains: i think what w411 said, is completely right. I agree 100% with him because what is the point is offering a service, that offers the program on various platforms, that works all the time, that has useful features, that won't stop working after 3 years, because the person, who programs it decides to go off. It simply works, and for that - personally - i am willing to pay money, because i can really use that. It saves so much time and effort. (keyword: development costs)

Why would you stay with the easy-to-use-service and want to keep it free under any circumstances? Because you're greedy and don't want to spend money, because you get scared of 40 USD per year and because you are so naive to think that Bittorrent Inc. has done something so evil, that the world will disappear. You know many systems nowadays (i am german, so sorry if there are any mistakes in the text) are based on this model, because it gives a more stable income. I think 3,33 USD per month is quite good. That s the same as the Private Internet Access VPN (at annual payments). It is also less than Netflix or any other major product (e.g. Spotify with 10 USD per month).

 

I think complainers must stop throwing dirt and stop just seeing the company at fault. It is true that they did deceive the userbase/community, but it was not something very serious (even understandable and foreseen by many, even with much worse expectations). Compare it to other companies. Then you will say that Bittorrent Inc. actually did quite well.

 

When suddenly it will come out, that security with Bittorrent Sync is not that given (keywords: NSA, backdoors, CIA, company espionage), then i would really consider to go away though, because data security is a reason why many people switched to Bittorrent Sync.

 

And btw, in Germany, companies are not using Dropbox, etc. at all (not even GMail, Microsoft knows that, but they can't do anything against that), because any provider that lies in a cloud with unknown data center origins or lies within America, is a threat to the company. That is no secret in Germany. The topic data security is very big here. And Bittorrent Sync would be one way to completely eradicate so many problems at once, IF it is secure. (implying no backdoors, etc.) -> regular 3rd party security audit reports concerning this matter!!!

 

EDIT: Wanted to add: in my opinion, the discussion is getting better and going in the right direction. Good points are stated, that i am pretty sure, are considered by the staff of Bittorrent Inc.. And i think Bittorrent Sync should maybe increase the folder limit. Maybe do some statistics on the distribution of power users vs. normal users and make a convenient limit that helps both parties. And another thing is that, i am also against a subscription model for now. Maybe it is good maybe not. Too few experience with this. But an alternative would be, to let people to pay for upgrades or certain features. Similar to "in-app-purchases" for iOS Apps. Or maybe supply a new version each year with upgraded features, though long-term that would probably end problematic. (not enough features to make, if not considering anything else then file-sharing and syncing)