Transcription Service Otter is Making Free Users Pay To Access Older Recordings

Automated transcription service Otter is making some big changes to its offerings for both free and paying customers. Mostly, the company is downgrading its features -- reducing the number of audio imports users can make; the length of audio they can transcribe each month, and so on -- though it is giving free users access to some new tools. From a report: One of the biggest changes, though, is that free users will no longer be able to access their full back catalogue of recordings. Instead, they'll only have access to the most recent 25. The rest will be "archived" -- that is, they'll still exist on Otter's servers, but users will have to either delete other conversations to access them, or pay to upgrade to Otter's "pro" plan. This and other changes to the service will kick in on September 27th, so any free users with more than 25 recordings may want to download their back catalogue before then. After September 27th, free users will still be able to access these recordings (by downloading then deleting audio files one at a time) but it'll be more of a hassle.

"download their back catalogue"

[splutty]

This implies there are people that don't do this? It's extremely scary how much people nowadays seem to rely on remote storage always being available...

Re:

[gweihir]

Indeed. But it is extremely concerning how much people rely on IT these days in general, when calling it a "highly experimental engineering discipline" would probably still be too kind.

Re:"download their back catalogue"

[ZorinLynx]

When Flickr said they were going do delete older photos from non-paying members several people I know FREAKED THE HELL OUT about it, saying that they were going to lose those photos forever if they didn't pay and that Flickr was basically extorting them.

I asked one of them "well what about the copy in your own photo library" and he said he doesn't have space to keep all his photos.

So yeah, people really depend on services like this to archive their stuff. It's absolutely insane to me, but they do, and they're just one unfortunate company decision away from losing their memories/recordings/etc.

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

I asked one of them "well what about the copy in your own photo library" and he said he doesn't have space to keep all his photos.

So he's not wiling to pay for storing his stuff but somehow thinks that Flickr will pay the costs for him?

Re:"download their back catalogue"

[bill_mcgonigle]

I helped set up a friend with Time Machine on a Mac, prepped a backup drive for him, showed him how to plug it in and just leave it overnight with nothing else to do.

Couldn't fucking be bothered. Until the charging circuit ate shit and the soldered-on SSD became inaccessible. Then it was a goddamn emergency.

These people want to act like children. Good parents understand the idea of "natural consequences" no matter how old these children are.

Re:

[timeOday]

It's just the reality. The vast majority of people if left to self-host their photos are going to have nothing 30 years from now.

My money is on all the iPhone users who don't balk a tossing Apple a few bucks per year to have their iPhotos go straight to iCloud and will never switch brands. They'll still have their photos in 30 years.

There are other services

[funkierchicken]

I’m using banafo.com for transcripts, it’s still in beta and free (for now), and has lower error rate than otter, similar to rev.ai, at least for my voice

You've got some nice recordings there...

[odinjurkowski]

...it would be a shame if anything happened to them.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You Otter

[Your Anus]

Find another company

What's a a good local alternative?

[couchslug]

What good and preferably FOSS applications enable those wanting transcription to do it locally?