The real headline:
Over 170,000 Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?
Not sure if Slate is A/B testing or if OP clickbait-ified the post title
Maybe it should read “170,000 nonprofits having to invoke their data restoration strategies and now in the market for ethical cloud providers, after Microsoft predictably lets them down”.
Checked the source code, looks like we’re dealing with three different titles here:
<title>Microsoft made a quiet change to a popular software grant. Small nonprofits lost everything.</title> <meta property="og:title" content="The Quiet Decision Microsoft Made That Devastated Thousands of Nonprofits" /> <h1 itemprop="headline" class="article__hed article__hed--" >Over 170,000 Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?</h1>
Khosla had seen Microsoft’s announcement last year that it was winding down its free nonprofit licenses beginning July 2025, but, per the record, he should have still been in the clear. He renewed Canopy’s yearly license last October, and Microsoft had emailed him to confirm he would retain access until Oct. 4, 2026. Khosla had no reason to expect anything would change, and he received no additional warnings—even as Microsoft kept in regular touch about other software updates. And he later learned he wasn’t alone, when another company service representative called the very next day and told him that roughly 171,000 small nongovernmental organizations “lost everything” in their OneDrive accounts.
In a statement emailed to Slate, Microsoft wrote that the original offers were “retired to streamline our grant offerings and simplify our grant portfolio,” adding, “We strongly advised our nonprofit customers and partners to transition to a different Microsoft 365 offer for nonprofits before their renewal date to avoid disruption and data loss.”
As an IT person I can’t imagine just deleting customers’ data one day without keeping an archival copy. This feels like a mistake, in which case they’re being dishonest in order not to admit to their mistake. And if it wasn’t a mistake, it’s a sign that they aren’t competent at understanding their customers, making plans, or communicating. Either way, it shows Microsoft is not a company you can have confidence doing business with.
Holy shit. I mean minus points for storing all your company’s data in OneDrive and just kinda trusting Microsoft, but also, holy shit is that fucked up on Microsoft’s part. Literally telling people “you’re good till your subscription ends” and then surprising them with “jk, we deleted all your data.”
And then this asinine corpo-speak response:
Microsoft wrote that the original offers were “retired to streamline our grant offerings and simplify our grant portfolio,” adding, “We strongly advised our nonprofit customers and partners to transition to a different Microsoft 365 offer for nonprofits before their renewal date to avoid disruption and data loss.”
No they fucking didn’t!
I just have a regular home license and one day my one drive was empty. The one drive I’ve pulled everything out of and after windows updates everything would be back in there again. Microsoft basically said there was nothing that could be done to recover my data. I switched to Linux that day. Like I specifically removed my files and turned off one drive in multiple occasions. And they turn it back on and move the My Documents folder back with no warning breaking folder paths for games. Such a shit company.
it’s a sign that they aren’t competent at understanding their customers, making plans, or communicating
For me that was self-evident when they rolled out Windows 11.
Microsoft did a crap thing, but regardless of the reason the data went away, their customers should all have had disaster recovery strategies and robust backups. The more precious the data, the more important it is to have robust backups.
I still feel for those affected, as I have lost data to my own mistakes in the past.
That’s the main reason why you don’t save data to one drive, unless you have at least one local backup.
And if you put anything on one drive, you better just put an encrypted backup there. No plain data.
I just found out yhat you can’t trust Microsoft because they’re evil fucks! Pass the word!
I’ve been doing that for the past 35 years already.
Here is a list of scenarios where it’s OK to trust Microslop:
You forgot that and .
damn! I always miss some
What if there is a fire at the attractive children’s orphanage and Bill Gates offers them a new home on an island he’s developing?
Aww, did I insult a likely pedo billionaire that the folks here like?
It figures that when you say something dumb that you blame other people for it
Just learn from your mistake and move on, like an adult.
Not sure what the dumb thing would be. Seems extremely likely that Bill Gates was also part of the child raping. Melinda specifically saying his relationship with Epstein was a big part of the divorce and yet refusing to ever say she didn’t suspect him of having sexual relationships with children and instead saying people should ask those questions of him is an insanely large red flag.
What does this have to do with the comment that was replied to
Read them a few times and I’m sure you’ll manage to puzzle your way through it.
Yeah this is why no one likes you
Fortunately I’m not entered in the online popularity contest.
It figures that when you say something dumb
Not sure what the dumb thing would be.
What does this have to do with the comment that was replied to
Honestly, if you couldn’t connect those dots I couldn’t think of a way to explain it to you.
I’m increasingly convinced that “The Cloud” is just a scam. Just keep your own files.
The Quiet Decision Microsoft Quietly Made That Quietly Devastated Thousands of Quiet Nonprofits. Quietly.
