Do people really not back up their files regularly? I would assume that a huge part of the reason the thieves aren't getting as much money as we'd expect is because most people back up their files at least every month or so. Institutions should back up their files much more regularly than that. Unless there's very significant new sensitive information that needs decrypting, there's not much reason for people to pay such a big ransom. If it was $20 instead, I would probably pay it anyway, but there's really no point.
This and many other lessons of this recent attack should be shared to all people and firms who can be subjected to the same thing later. This is now a new form of terrorism and on the side of the hackers/programmers can be a good source of money via Bitcoin. I am sure this will not be the last and in fact can be inducing more attacks in varying degrees and forms in the coming months and years. We should be careful and maybe NSA should be spending more time, focus and resources on this one.