The whole "just sync everything, and if you can't seek everything, pretend to sync everything with fake files and then download the real ones ad-hoc" model of storage feels a bit ill-conceived to me. It tries to present a simple facade but I'm not sure it actually simplifies things. It always results in nasty user surprises and sometimes data loss. I've seen Microsoft OneDrive do the same thing to people at work.

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carefulfungi 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I’ve lost data not realizing I was backing up placeholder files (iCloud).

Hiding the network always ends in pain. But never goes out of style.

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eblume 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Same. I lost a lot of photos this way. I've recently moved over to Immich + Borg backup with a 3-2-1 backup between a local synology NAS and BorgBase. Painful lesson, but at least now I feel much more confident. I've even built some end-to-end monitoring with Grafana.

	▲	chrisweekly 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Careful w that Synology NAS, mine's now a brick that may also have led to permanent data loss.

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whimblepop 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My own approach to simplicity generally means "hide complexity behind a simple interface" rather than pushing for simple implementations because I feel that too much emphasis on simplicity of implementations often means sacrificing correctness.

This particular example is a useful one for me to think about, because it's a version of hiding complexity in order to present a simple interface that I actually hate. (WYSIWYG editors is another one, for similar reasons: it always ends up being buggy and unpredictable.)