Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage in June 2021 • Hacker News Board

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

#601

Post by shaklee3 » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #404

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've come to realize is that, with a very big photo library, no iPhone or Macbook can analyze them all and share the results with all my devices. Only a server can analyze 10,000+ pictures, identify faces, organize by date. All in a slick and fast UI. How big is your photo library? I have about 100GB and that’s all worked perfectly well on iOS/macOS for many years - even on the old 2010 MacBook Air I used until it…

... And apple can't find cats correctly at all. Which would you want? Google can put a name to your cat and index by typing the name, and in that case it only finds you specific cat.

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

#602

Post by Normille » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #320

Normille wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pixelfed's more like a crappier version of Instagram. It's hardly a substitute for Google Photos.

It at least allows to host it on your own or ask a friend to do it for you. It's of course hard to have all the features of Google Photos, but it's FOSS, so anyone can contribute.

It's more the huge myth perpetrated by the fediverse movement: "It's your data. If you don't like you can take it with you" that irritates me, more than any particular functional limitations.

But that's a rant for another day.

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

#603

Post by acdha » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

shaklee3 wrote: post #601

acdha wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've come to realize is that, with a very big photo library, no iPhone or Macbook can analyze them all and share the results with all my devices. Only a server can analyze 10,000+ pictures, identify faces, organize by date. All in a slick and fast UI. How big is your photo library? I have about 100GB and that’s all worked perfectly well on iOS/macOS for many years - even on the old 2010 MacBook Air I used until it…

... And apple can't find cats correctly at all. Which would you want? Google can put a name to your cat and index by typing the name, and in that case it only finds you specific cat.

How about the reality we actually live in where Apple Photos does find cats reliably with fewer false positives?

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

#604

Post by shaklee3 » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #603

shaklee3 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... And apple can't find cats correctly at all. Which would you want? Google can put a name to your cat and index by typing the name, and in that case it only finds you specific cat.

How about the reality we actually live in where Apple Photos does find cats reliably with fewer false positives?

Which reality is that? Apple photos is consistently worse at finding them. I've never heard anyone say their image recognition is anywhere near as good, and that's my experience as well.

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

#605

Post by MKinley » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

masterofmisc wrote: post #591

MKinley wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's "business" model has been in question for years now, I now am extra glad that I already downloaded all my data from Google, acquired my own domain and set up a nextcloud server. If I need more space, I buy another/larger hard drive, and never need to worry about data collection, services shutting down or prices changing.

But what do you do for off-site back though? Do you have a strategy for the 'house burning down' scenario?

Yes I do, offline and offsite backup of important and valuable data stored on a HDD at my parents. Not the most seemless or user friendly options, but the privacy and security of my data is more important.

I have also considered looking into mirroring my data on a trusted hosting provider for some day when I can afford to pay.

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

#606

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #539

sudosysgen wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that is low value, partisan, or reddit-style. The argument that this is a kind of dumping is insightful and not partisan. It is political in the same way as everything is political.

>I don't see how that is low value, partisan, or reddit-style. Not surprising considering you just came to HN last year, probably from reddit, bringing the same toxic discussion style. >It is political in the same way as everything is political. Yep. There it is. Flooding HN with politics to push an agenda.

I've been lurking HN for years. I'm not the one insulting anyone or accusing people of being in bad faith.

>>It is political in the same way as everything is political.

>Yep. There it is. Flooding HN with politics to push an agenda.

No, it isn't. It's a descriptive statement. If you describe politics as "what we do together", which is the only definition that makes a discussion on Google's business practices (which is totally in the spirit of the website), then essentially everything is politics because of the effect discussing the world has on what should be done.

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

#607

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

akmarinov wrote: post #383

shajznnckfke wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an advertiser how do I buy user data from Google photos?

Set up a campaign and target a particular group

Doesn't have anything to do with Photos data, since Photo, Drive, Gmail, etc. are explicitly not used as inputs for that.

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

#608

Post by pnutjam » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #159

pnutjam wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can get a 1TB storage server from Time4vps for about $60 (they charge in euros). That gives me the ability to store stuff with sftp, rsync, or more full featured backup solutions like borgbackup.

Have you tried using that full 1TB? Many small time hosts oversubscribe and will look for a reason to boot you if you go beyond a reasonable usage %.

Yes, I have. I ran it full for a couple months, on accident.

I had a symlinked directory getting backup up twice...

I never heard a word from them, but I eventually noticed and fixed it. I generally run around 600GB.

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

#609

Post by pnutjam » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

anuila wrote: post #175

pnutjam wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can get a 1TB storage server from Time4vps for about $60 (they charge in euros). That gives me the ability to store stuff with sftp, rsync, or more full featured backup solutions like borgbackup.

Sounds like a bad deal, comparatively. Microsoft skips the low-level interfaces but gives you redundancy and usable UIs and services (on top of an API)

I can run other services on top of backups, for example, I run a calibre server.

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

#610

Post by vidarh » Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #143

vidarh wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the frantic meetings at Yahoo when Gmail killed the market for storage upgrades. They caused an immense amount of work (more so than affecting revenue and costs; the premium quotas at least in Europe didn't generate much revenue and the quotas were there more out of fear of excessive use). A lot of adoption of Google services was driven by not having to worry about quotas. Making quotas a concern again wil…

To be fair, current quotas are nothing like email quotas used to be. You can store a very reasonable amount of photos in 12GB. Gmail is still practically unlimited to most people.

No, but neither photos or e-mail sizes today are anything like what they used to be either. And remember the quota is the general Google Account quota, not separate to photos. I already have 8GB of other data in Drive.

Most of Googles products are also geared towards encouraging people to develop a habit of not deleting things, which creates a very different situation.

So while this may not be a big problem at the moment, we'll see. I see Photos suggest that at my current rate it'll last ~4 years before I'll need to start paying, which isn't awful, but it's a question of when not if, and image / video sizes still keep creeping up.

That's with my photo-taking being at a far lower rate than it used to be when my son was younger. I'm not a very social person and don't travel much at the moment - a lot of people will hit those limits far faster.