Backblaze, a company of which I’m quite fond, just sent out an email notice of a price increase to their computer backup service.
- $9 a month, or
- $99 a year, or
- $189 for two years
I’ve been a Backblaze user since they were charging $5 a month or $60 a year to back up a computer. In the years since, I’ve seen that number slowly tick up. $5 became $6 became $7. The price has now nearly doubled since I first subscribed.
In addition to the price increase, they’re also making their one-year extended version history feature available to all users for “free.” Previously, it was an additional $2 a month add-on. I’ve never used more than their 30-day version history, so this ridiculously long extra safety buffer is nice, but in my case, unnecessary. It feels like a way to boost revenue without actually spending anything.
This email, taken in its entirety, can also be read a different way: Backblaze subscribers will be receiving a feature that they may not need, and cannot refuse in exchange for a lower subscription price, while incurring a 29% price increase for monthly subscribers or a 41% increase for annual subscribers.
It’s an understandable bummer for the consumer. On one hand, data storage isn’t free,
It should go without saying, but I consider Backblaze an essential service; there’s nothing quite like it. I’ll still recommend it to everyone I know. There are few things in this world I value more than knowing my important data is reliably backed up and able to be restored. I’ll accept this most recent price increase with a well-earned grimace for that reason.
Numeric Citizen just read your post… and unrelated to the subject of the post, how do you achieve the ellipsis with a popup right inline?
Sean Anderson @numericcitizen That’s the Bigfoot plug-in. @jsonbecker adapted it for Micro.blog. You can install it in the Plug-ins page.
In my text, I’ll include something like this and the plug-in formats it how I prefer:
Some example text.[^1]
[^1]: An example footnote.
Elliot Ali good article! As their price ticked up, I decided to switch to a SYnology NAS. We’ll see if that was a good idea in course. A few yearly subscriptions quickly paid for one + five drives + UPS, especially if you have two computers in the house (or more). The only real down side is it’s on site.
Sean Anderson @elliotali I’ll have to reconsider a Synology for this purpose. With that option available, the only thing keeping me from not using Backblaze at this point is its off-site nature. Regardless, I expect a lot of pondering and research in my future.
Sean Anderson @elliotali I’m currently sticking with Backblaze for off-site backups and an attached SSD for a local Time Machine backup. My Backblaze subscription was renewed shortly before the price increase, so I want to get my money’s worth on that expense.
I do have a spare Synology floating around somewhere; I think I’ll use that for other purposes until next year when the Backblaze subscription comes due again. I’ll probably switch over then.