Opinion Habr: disable or not a large site owed 450 000 rubles?

On the evening of the 8th of September, the first site of the Runet about cultural and club life geometria.ru was disconnected from the world wide web. The reason for the disconnection was the debt of half a million rubles to another well-deserved organization - the Selectel network of data centers.

Under the cut there will not be a tearful story about who is right and who is to blame. I just want to describe the situation as a whole, to hear the opinion of habrazhiteli about it, as well as what way out of this situation you would seem most correct if you come across a similar one, regardless of the side of the barricades.

Disclaimer

The author is in no way connected with any of the parties in the events described, and his interest is exclusively sporting, since The situation is quite controversial for both parties. You can hear about what happened, for example, in the news on the radio . There is no claim to objectivity in the text, but only a personal opinion based on rumors, but I tried to describe it from the most neutral position.

And what actually happened

So, there is a fairly large site with a 14-year-old life history, spread over several racks and leasing communication channels, both to the outside world and between data centers. Resource media, deserved, with all sorts of ratings and regularly organizing various events.
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Due to internal squabbles, the site has arrears in paying for the services provided for several months before the data center for a pretty decent amount - 450,000 rubles.

According to representatives of geometria.ru, when it became known about the debt, they immediately contacted Selectel to explain the reasons for the current situation and even allegedly provided guarantees of payment, but the negotiations did not lead to a positive result and access to the site was terminated, which is legally perfectly correct .

And here we come to the main topic, for the sake of which this topic was started - is it worth it to completely disconnect the connection from major sites or is it better to influence them somehow differently?

Perhaps it is enough just to limit their access speed to uncomfortable? Or maybe it is better to first restrict access to servers and go to arbitration, using servers as a guarantee of payment?

How generally to measure the criticality of debt levels for projects of this level? Indeed, it is one thing when a hipster server brings a unit server to you, and then they end up with a smoothie, and they disappear into nowhere, and quite another, when one resource rents several racks with communication channels at once, and it definitely will not disappear.

The following question arises from this: how to deal with customer orientation and at the same time not drive ourselves into the endless waiting for payments on debts? Interruptions in the receipt of money occur at all, but how long to wait for payment? Or, again, to what amount to lend?

You can dig a little deeper - the Supreme Arbitration Court somehow decided that during disputes between operators it is impossible to disturb subscribers' access to communication services. Of course, this is not 100% about this situation, but you can see from a slight angle. Selectel is undoubtedly a licensee and a telecom operator providing services to the client for 150,000 a month. Geometry - a resource with a huge attendance, reputation and well-deserved name. Not a licensee, but in fact, they provide telematics services to a large number of citizens, i.e. access to servers, to the site and its services. It turns out that legally, even though they are not an operator at all, in fact, disabling such a resource for a non-zero number of people may be equal to disconnecting from communication services. It’s like “The Internet doesn’t work for us, because VKontakte doesn’t load”.

But this philosophy has already begun. The bottom line at the moment - the case may be a precedent. In any case, I don’t know such stories when a large information resource was turned off for relatively uncritical debts. As a colleague clearly noted: it’s as if I’ve been blocked in the bank by all the accounts, from payroll to savings due to debt on credit. I seem to want to repay the debt, despite the positive long credit history and the amounts on the remaining accounts I have already blocked everything.

In general, Habrazhiteli - I want to hear your opinion in similar situations.

UPD: I forgot to indicate where the debt came from for three months: due to an internal conflict, the person involved in operational activities decided to withdraw without transfer of cases and the owner of the resource really did not know about the existence of the debt.

UPD: Selectel representative response :

In the situation with the portal Geometriya.ru, we are talking exclusively about the repayment of arisen debts - any other interpretations cause us only bewilderment and regret. The portal has accumulated a debt of 450 thousand rubles, and for 3 months we tried to negotiate a settlement of the debt (including with business owners - and this is documented), but it did not succeed.

The shutdown of the resource was by no means unexpected - we warned Geometriya.ru representatives about it at least 5 times, as stipulated by the contract. We regret that we had to go to extreme measures, but we have no other levers of influence left.

Note that today (September 9), the portal found the funds and repaid about 40% of the amount - we, in turn, went to meet the client and, after partial payment, restored access to the resource.

UPD: In the absence of an account in Habré, the owner of geometry Alexander wrote to me and asked him to post his vision of the situation. I publish as it is:

Selectel's communication with the former Gene Director of Geometria Degenau I cannot comment, because I know nothing about him. I know that every time the manager of Selectlel Michael called me and spoke to me, I immediately got involved in the situation and began to do my best in my credentials. Powers in the operational management of the owner, albeit 51%, almost none.
But, just the problem of inadequate payments and embezzlement of the gene director of funds allocated to him for administrative and economic activities of Geometry, and led to the fact that I was forced to sound the alarm, up to the submission of 2 applications to law enforcement.

It was me who tried to explain to selectc, that the point was not in not wanting to pay, but that I, as an owner, were in a difficult situation. Managers have accumulated debt, I do not have a management account and the business is on the verge of collapse. And we paid a part of the bills from other legal entities, about which we sent copies of payment orders, though after the loss of power.
How can one take and turn off electricity from a client on equipment, a client who has been working for five years ?! A client who does not refuse to pay, but has difficulty explaining them! A client who pays more than one hundred thousand per month and only contains two cabinets with servers in their data center. It does not fit in the head.