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Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

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Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#441

Post by somethingwitty1 »

bogdan wrote: post #334
wolco2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think offering something for free and unlimited for 10 years and suddenly charging for it seems like bait and switch. If you have an existing free unlimited plan they should grandfather that in. In a year they will start charging for gmail. In two or three they will start charging for search.

> I think offering something for free and unlimited for 10 years and suddenly charging for it seems like bait and switch. Wouldn't it be 'bait and switch' if they did that after less time, say 1 year? 10 years is more than reasonable. And if you disagree, that's fine, but I'm curious to hear what number of years would you consider reasonable then? I'm not excited about the news either but I think it's _fair_.

I'm not sure more time makes it better. The logic here is that they baited you for so long that it suddenly became fair?

Apply that logic to other situations and it doesn't make sense. I get that `you` may be ok with this, but it doesn't change what it is.

Regardless of whether we individually feel what is happening is 'fair', we should be able to acknowledge why someone is upset and that this is indeed a bait & switch. Customers were offered unlimited backup and storage of the photos they took. Customers used said service with that expectation, while competitors to it went out of business, and now, they are forced to pay for continued service. That is a bait & switch.

The moment we have to start saying, "well, they should have known better" or "how did you expect this to be free forever" puts us into victim blaming territory. Just because someone could have been aware of a bait & switch/scam, doesn't make that practice not a bait & switch/scam.

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#442

Post by throwaway3699 »

acdha wrote: post #400
kartayyar wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the bait and switch ? The stuff you uploaded already is still free. It's for more usage. You don't like it, you have the option to take your photos somewhere else.

People don’t join a service like this intending it to be a static archive. They were told that this was an easy way to automatically save space on your phone and protect your photos in case something happens to your phone, started building a social network with their friends and family, etc. Now the choice is to pay or walk away.

I fail to see what's wrong with either of those options. Switching photos apps is not hard.

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#445

Post by DesiLurker »

arkanciscan wrote: post #57
chrismeller wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like “tapping that lucrative subscription revenue” because they finally have enough people locked in

That's my cue to start self-hosting again!

I have a synology setup with a syncme app on mobile that I run every month or so to dump pics on home nas. I have a amazon glacier backup plugin on NAS that backup's periodically. thats it.

Even if the house catches fire I can still get my stuff out of amazon.

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#446

Post by WalterBright »

zeroxfe wrote: post #419
WalterBright wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> indexes them in a local SQLite DB. I don't really understand this. I've been in computing for 45 years now. Programs come and go. I store files I want to keep in the most generic format practical. Storing a file in some program's special format is not a good plan for reading it 40 years from now. For photos, I store them as jpgs in folders named after the year. Within those folders, there might be sub-folders named…

Bits rot. If you want your data to last the next 40 years, plan for spending a few hours every 5 years migrating your storage. It's a far better plan than trying to predict what the world will be like 40 years from now.

Absolutely. I buy new drives every year or so and copy the stuff forward. Many of my 10+ year old drives no longer function.

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#447

Post by judge2020 »

brailsafe wrote: post #250
jeffbee wrote: post #8

Huh, I wonder if Google will also fix their incredibly bad "Backup and Sync" program for MacOS, which over the years has added thousands of copies of every photo on my Mac into Google Photos, making photos virtually useless to me and presumably racking up the virtual disk usage of my account. I'm happy to pay for storage but seriously this is one of the worst programs I have ever encountered.

Big Sur is coming out tomorrow, might be a decent chance to build a native app that's way better

If Apple can put iOS’s ‘files’ app API to use in Finder these companies might just be able to drop macOS native (macOS only) apps in exchange for only distributing catalyst apps.

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#448

Post by Kye »

kumarm wrote: post #367
vvoyer wrote: post #307

I pay for Google Photos and you should too if you care about your photos. I've used Dropbox, Apple Photos and Google Photos. Google Photos is hands down the best photo application for individuals. Mostly because its face/object/place/whatever recognition is the best of its kind. Dropbox: they are ignoring the photos needs from users. They focus on "enterprise cloud storage" and "workplace sharing". Apple: I love the…

I never understand people on HN complaining about Ads on YouTube, life long Storage on Google Photos costing $. Probably for 90% of people on HN, it costs more (Opportunity cost) to type a comment complaining about ads on Youtube compared to a month subscription. But for some reason people like to complain.

Or maybe your criteria for valuing things and deciding what's worth complaining about isn't as universal as you think.

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#449

Post by baud147258 »

drstewart wrote: post #439
dontfiremepls wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's anti-competitive dumping. The dirty secret of SV is that it's an enormous dumping scheme: burn billions of dollars of money to offer 'free' or goods and services, gain a dominant position in the market by driving the honestly priced competition into the ground, then jack up the prices and fleece the customers. Uber is the poster boy of this strategy, but it's not the only one. The honest approach would b…

I really hate that low value, reddit-style political comments like this are becoming more common on HN nowadays.

I don't see what value your comment is bringing either

Re: Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021

#450

Post by mittermayr »

dmd wrote: post #131
mittermayr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is running out of ways to keep up with revenue expectations, it's becoming quite obvious. Even Chrome has small ads at the bottom from time to time now, the desperation is quite clear.

> Chrome has small ads at the bottom Congratulations, you've got malware on your machine. Chrome doesn't do that.

Nope, it has/had a line of linked text that promoted the new Pixel phone. Not graphical and definitely not malware. Was on the tiled start page a few weeks ago. An ad by Google, I took a screenshot, I’ll try to find it.

Edit: there you go: https://mobile.twitter.com/mittermayr/status/131381816260595...

(Don’t be confused by the background image, I put that there).

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