[prirun]

At high request volumes there would be a per-operation charges, so not exactly free.

Backblaze (the consumer thing, not B2) has always had unlimited backups, and still does. One of their execs (Brian) posted a graph showing a backup space utilization histogram for all customers in 2018. The first few data points are:

30% use <100GB 15% use <200GB 9% use <300GB ...

So ~55% of their customers are using <300GB and paying $6/mo. On B2, their cloud storage product, $6 will buy 1.2TB of storage. Way more than half of their unlimited customers are paying 4x more for unlimited storage than they would if they paid for metered storage.

Interestingly, on that same histogram, are the last 2 customers: one using 293TB and one using 430TB. While IMO they are misusing the service, they are also an extreme minority. If that last guy was paying for that space with B2, it would cost $2150/month. Backblaze has said they just don't care. Now if it were half their users doing it, of course they would.

I can tell you one thing: R2 with free bandwidth is going to be a gift for the porn industry!