For something important like backup I don't want to start using a product that may fold in the near-term future.
edit: it seems the free deals are for people who want to switch from carbonite, but they work for anyone. So I guess it's not exactly what I thought: https://www.crashplan.com/carboniteswitcher/
Since then I had one bad HD crash and I was happy to be able to restore from CrashPlan... After a little bit over a day of syncing the restore was complete and I lost only around the last 10 minutes of my work which is not bad at all.
So happy customer here for over 2 years now, and I have already extended my subscription by one more year at regular price.
For this kind of product, the 'one year free' strategy seems like a decent lure to me. If you use the service extensively, at the end of that year, you will have x GB of backups that you need to move elsewhere fast if you do not continue your subscription. That is way more of a hassle than, say, changing your Internet provider, phone company, or health insurance (at least in some parts of the world).
So, I guess their ploy is that users who cost them a lot during their free year will stay for years.
I didn't notice that yesterday, and it's worth keeping in mind when reading this submission.
In my case, it might actually have had the effect of discouraging me from considering the offer, because the price went up since I last checked. Does anyone else feel the same way, or is this a discount model that you would recommend keeping in mind for another occasion?