[usrbinbash]

> you can't complain then if people are using it.

Yes he can complain, and bombarding a free service for unlimited requests isn't okay.

For starters because the people doing that, will usually be among the first to cry when the free service stops being free, blocks their requests or suddenly requires an API key.

[ranguna]

> bombarding a free service for unlimited requests isn't okay

Hummmm.... OP's website on https://getjsonip.com/ says:

> Supports unlimited requests and is free.

Seems like we have a bit of a contradiction here.

[revolvingocelot]

Back in highschool, my friends and I got kicked out of a buffet restaurant. Every movie I've ever seen a poster for suggests that it's "Only in Theatres", yet I've held many a DVD release in my hands.

There's something about reasonability and fair-use and use over time going on here, but I just can't put my finger on it.

[ransackdev]

You didn't get kicked out, you got played. They bank on the fact that most people will eat less than the price of admission, kinda almost like the ones who under eat the admission cost subsidize the ones who overeat the admission cost. Kinda like the paying customers for a service usually subsidize the running costs of the free tier. The buffet advertised all you can eat, you paid them, that's a contract. Unless there's fine print that you agreed to, you had no obligation to leave before you had your fill if they were open still. America 101, contracts and liability for breaches of contracts.

For example here's the Backblaze team verifying that their unlimited personal backup is indeed unlimited, with one single user storing 430TB for $6/month. The users spending $6/month who use a couple GB more than offset the cost of the 430TB guy. If your business model doesn't support the ability to get in the black, you have a failing business. This isn't the user's responsibility to fix, it's the failing service with a bad business model.

> As you can see, we lose money on a few customers at the high end (we cannot store 430TB of data for only $6/month), but since more customers just want to be reasonable and backup their laptops we are profitable and fully sustainable on the "average"

> Somebody who is costing Backblaze $2,150/month and is only paying $6/month :-)

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/b6lbew/comment/ejlbsq...

[usrbinbash]

I see no contradiction.

There is a difference between gracefully and responsibly using something that is offered for free, and just bombarding it with requests like no tomorrow.

People can of course do the latter. But then they don't get to complain when at some point, the available offerings present walls of legalese instead of a few simple and clear statements, and the user experience goes from seamless and easy to "Click here to register an API Key"

[ranguna]

It all depends on the nature of the work you are doing.

One thing is to own a service that's used by 10 MAU and you extend the service with a job that calls the OP's service 100 times a second. That's bad, you are using way more than you need.

Another thing is to own a mobile app used by 10M MAU and you embed the OP's service into the app. That's not bad intention, you just added a new service to your app. The problem is that the OP's definition of "unlimited" is not really unlimited.

[Prickle]

You can say that the local community water well has "unlimited uses", then complain when Nestle comes over and takes all the water.

No difference here.

[ricardobayes]

Can you imagine a fast food restaurant franchise CEO to complain how annoying it is that people ask for copious amounts of free ketchup? If you don't have a policy or anti-abuse measures, don't complain that "people are using too much" of the free stuff. That's ridiculous and detached from real life.