Do your own downloads count in your bandwidth limit?

jfriend

I'm trying to answer a question from a Smugmug doubter in another forum who wants to know if you download your own original photos (while logged in) because you lost a hard disk, do your own downloads count against your bandwidth limit?

The specific example being asked about is this: If they have 40GB of photos on smugmug and they lose their hard disk and want to get those 40GB of photos back from smugmug and they download them themselves, will they get charged for 40GB of download bandwidth that month?

I've suggested already that they may want to just order their images on DVD rather than download them. I've wondered if smugmug would likely reset the bandwidth limit for that particular one-time use?

marlinspike

Given ExposeTheMoment's recent experience, I'm going to say that yes that does count against your bandwidth. But who would want to do that much downloading? just get the DVD backup.

Andy

jfriend wrote:

I'm trying to answer a question from a Smugmug doubter in another forum who wants to know if you download your own original photos (while logged in) because you lost a hard disk, do your own downloads count against your bandwidth limit?

The specific example being asked about is this: If they have 40GB of photos on smugmug and they lose their hard disk and want to get those 40GB of photos back from smugmug and they download them themselves, will they get charged for 40GB of download bandwidth that month?

I've suggested already that they may want to just order their images on DVD rather than download them. I've wondered if smugmug would likely reset the bandwidth limit for that particular one-time use?

It does indeed count toward bandwidth. But please tell your friend that if he writes help, Attn Andy, I'll make sure that he doesn't get charged anything for extra bandwidth for this purpose. He's probably upset enough that he's had a disk crash - we'll make it as easy as possible for him!

Thanks for posting, John - and do point them to this thread

ExposeTheMoment

Oh well I bought a Backup
I figured after speaking with Andy on my other thread, that I would not be able to DL the rest of my stuff, so I went ahead and bought a DVD back up from smugmug. Thats cost me 202.00.

Andy did reset my account so my galleries were available to be viewed.

I would feel really bad for the guy who wanted to add 2trabytes.

jfriend

DVDs kind of expensive if lots of GBs

marlinspike wrote:

Given ExposeTheMoment's recent experience, I'm going to say that yes that does count against your bandwidth. But who would want to do that much downloading? just get the DVD backup.

The only challenge with the DVD backup is that it can get kind of expensive if you have 10's of GBs. If you have no other way of getting your images back, it costs a whole lot less than taking your hard disk into a data recovery shop (trust me, I know what that costs), but downloading is a ton more economical if possible.

jfriend

Good to know

Andy wrote:

It does indeed count toward bandwidth. But please tell your friend that if he writes help, Attn Andy, I'll make sure that he doesn't get charged anything for extra bandwidth for this purpose. He's probably upset enough that he's had a disk crash - we'll make it as easy as possible for him!

Thanks for posting, John - and do point them to this thread

Thanks Andy. I was guessing you guys would do that. I perhaps didn't make myself clear. This is a hypothetical case. It's a discussion with some folks who are being critical of the Smugmug bandwidth limit vs. some competitors and trying to poke holes in Smugmug's policy. If your own downloads didn't count on the bandwidth limit, that would have been the easiest answer (in my argument), but this one works fine too.

Andy

jfriend wrote:

Thanks Andy. I was guessing you guys would do that. I perhaps didn't make myself clear. This is a hypothetical case. It's a discussion with some folks who are being critical of the Smugmug bandwidth limit vs. some competitors and trying to poke holes in Smugmug's policy. If your own downloads didn't count on the bandwidth limit, that would have been the easiest answer (in my argument), but this one works fine too.

I honestly don't know how folks can get so measurebatingly critical of such a silly thing.

We've doubled and doubled bandwitdh "limits" in the past 18 months. I don't think we've really ever charged someone for bandwidth for a gallery gone wild, or a crazy month or two of popularity, if they've contacted us and asked "what's up?". We do have the bandwidth limits in place, yes, because we have some very wildly popular sites like vamosrafael and obamaforillinois, amongst others. They pay a premium for extra bandwidth.

It is soooo much ado about nothing. But people get crazy about it.

marlof

Andy wrote:

I honestly don't know how folks can get so measurebatingly critical of such a silly thing.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with you, I find it kind of funny that you state that on a forum that deals with digital photography...

Andy

marlof wrote:

Although I wholeheartedly agree with you, I find it kind of funny that you state that on a forum that deals with digital photography...

I'm amazed at the bandwidth - counters. We have maaaaybe 1 or 2 people every couple months that go over due to "gallery gone wild" or some such - and it's never been a problem

jfriend

You know too much. Put yourself in the head of a new user

Andy wrote:

I honestly don't know how folks can get so measurebatingly critical of such a silly thing.

We've doubled and doubled bandwitdh "limits" in the past 18 months. I don't think we've really ever charged someone for bandwidth for a gallery gone wild, or a crazy month or two of popularity, if they've contacted us and asked "what's up?". We do have the bandwidth limits in place, yes, because we have some very wildly popular sites like vamosrafael and obamaforillinois, amongst others. They pay a premium for extra bandwidth.

It is soooo much ado about nothing. But people get crazy about it.

If you don't understand why people worry about bandwidth usage, then you're not you're not putting yourself in the head of a potential new Smugmug user who doesn't know everything you know.

People fear it because they don't and can't know whether it will or will not be a problem for them until they have their own account, see their own metrics and hang out here. It feels like it's completely out of your control and 99% of the population has no experience ever measuring bandwidth consumption so they just have no idea how much their images will use, who will discover them, how many hits they'll get, etc...

I remember when I first posted 1800 photos from the school talent show and broadcast the URL to the school. I was petrified that I would exceed my bandwidth limit in the first day. I simply had no idea. I wondered if I shouldn't use smugmug for those photos. I even emailed support and asked them what would happen if I went over my limit. I inquired about buying extra bandwidth. Well, I didn't come close to my limit in the whole month and since then you've even raised the limits. But, how was I to know?

So, this is a reminder to Smugmug that as long as it works this way, you have to understand that people just don't know whether this limit will work for them or not. At best that creates some uncertainty about the service. They either have to ignore it and assume that they must not be any differerent than everyone else and therefore they'll be OK, have to know someone who tells them it's OK from their personal experience or they have to hang around here long enough to see that it's not a problem.

I'm not suggesting whether you should change this policy or not, but I am saying that you need to not be surprised why it takes a lot of explaining and why it's the hardest thing about Smugmug to get a portential new user comfortable with - particularly since they are usually comparing Smugmug with a competitive site that does not meter bandwidth.

DavidTO

Yes. Before you get to know and trust this service what goes through your mind is, "oh, so *that's* how they stick it to me!"

Andy

jfriend wrote:

If you don't understand why people worry about bandwidth usage, then you're not you're not putting yourself in the head of a potential new Smugmug user who doesn't know everything you know.

People fear it because they don't and can't know whether it will or will not be a problem for them until they have their own account, see their own metrics and hang out here. It feels like it's completely out of your control and 99% of the population has no experience ever measuring bandwidth consumption so they just have no idea how much their images will use, who will discover them, how many hits they'll get, etc...

I remember when I first posted 1800 photos from the school talent show and broadcast the URL to the school. I was petrified that I would exceed my bandwidth limit in the first day. I simply had no idea. I wondered if I shouldn't use smugmug for those photos. I even emailed support and asked them what would happen if I went over my limit. I inquired about buying extra bandwidth. Well, I didn't come close to my limit in the whole month and since then you've even raised the limits. But, how was I to know?

So, this is a reminder to Smugmug that as long as it works this way, you have to understand that people just don't know whether this limit will work for them or not. At best that creates some uncertainty about the service. They either have to ignore it and assume that they must not be any differerent than everyone else and therefore they'll be OK, have to know someone who tells them it's OK from their personal experience or they have to hang around here long enough to see that it's not a problem.

I'm not suggesting whether you should change this policy or not, but I am saying that you need to not be surprised why it takes a lot of explaining and why it's the hardest thing about Smugmug to get a portential new user comfortable with - particularly since they are usually comparing Smugmug with a competitive site that does not meter bandwidth.

Good points, John - and thanks!