Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#121

Post by ghaff » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

derwiki wrote: post #45

Heliosmaster wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it sucks but.. yeah, that's how it works. And that is enabled by VC funded culture, where you have million of dollars invested in companies, which can then offer services at a loss investing in something else (market share, training data, etc.). Using smaller companies which charge honestly for the services they provide is probably more sustainable in the long term.

In this case though, a smaller company might not be around forever. When you’re looking at storing important photos, the service you think will last longest may be best. (I use Flickr, Gphotos and an S3 bucket but I’m paranoid)

I use Flickr as well but I also back up in other ways, including locally. As I wrote on another thread, I'd never depend on a photo sharing site as my primary storage.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#122

Post by T0pU3er » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #101

elmo2you wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, Google's pricing on storage is more than reasonable That probably depends, on whether you factor in the profit Google makes from mining your data. That should be subtracted from their operating costs and only then compared to what they charge for the storage. My guess is that they'll make quite a killing on the thing, as a whole. Even besides the morally questionable aspects (of the data mining), consid…

Is google mining photos for profit? What kind of profits are there to mine data in google photos?

1 picture is worth a 1000 google adwords

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#123

Post by rockengineer84 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #2

Thanks for giving us all the machine learning data. We no longer need your services.

that kind of statement is harsh. what gives you a guarantee that any other paid service is not going to do this "machine learning" on your data. has Google ever made public your data?

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#124

Post by rockengineer84 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #73

tiborsaas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But users also benefit from it. You can search for the contents of the images in your private gallery.

“private”

has Google ever made your data public?

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#125

Post by itsrajju » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

abtom wrote: post #56

cbg0 wrote: post #33

For anyone looking for other options: I've been very pleased with Microsoft's Onedrive offering; I pay $70/year for access to all the Office apps plus 1TB of storage and their family plan is $100/year and supports up to 6 people, with 1TB of storage per account.

Any idea if I can buy the family plan and use 6TB for myself?

Theoretically you can. You just need 6 different email addresses and add them to your onedrive account. You won't be able to use it as a single 6TB volume though.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#126

Post by fernandotakai » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:40 PM UTC

johncena33 wrote: post #87

Sebb767 wrote: post #36

I honestly can't see the outrage here. Sure, they've closed their free tier, but they keep up the promise for Pixel owners and do not count images previously uploaded. That's really more than one can ask for in something they get for free .

The internet is full of entitled people. I've never seen such entitled people in real life. Unfortunately lately HN is no different. I am also an avid user of Google Photos. From my perspective, they did keep their promise. They will store your photos for free before a certain timeline. Just because someone did a favor to you for some time, that doesn't mean you are entitled to their help forever.

i mean, paying for google photos storage is not even that expensive. it's $10 for 2TB, which i happily pay every month because it means i don't have to worry about photos backups.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#127

Post by freeflight » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:40 PM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #101

elmo2you wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, Google's pricing on storage is more than reasonable That probably depends, on whether you factor in the profit Google makes from mining your data. That should be subtracted from their operating costs and only then compared to what they charge for the storage. My guess is that they'll make quite a killing on the thing, as a whole. Even besides the morally questionable aspects (of the data mining), consid…

Is google mining photos for profit? What kind of profits are there to mine data in google photos?

I would be very surprised if Google is not data mining everything they can, it's always been their main business model.

With the photos it could be as simple as merging the meta data from those photos together with a user profile for even more targeted advertising.

Somebody making a lot of photos of certain things might be more interested in buying these things.

I'm pretty sure the real data wizards can think of quite a few more, and better, ways to monetize such data, particularly at the scale that Google is collecting it.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#128

Post by autoexec » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #101

elmo2you wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, Google's pricing on storage is more than reasonable That probably depends, on whether you factor in the profit Google makes from mining your data. That should be subtracted from their operating costs and only then compared to what they charge for the storage. My guess is that they'll make quite a killing on the thing, as a whole. Even besides the morally questionable aspects (of the data mining), consid…

Is google mining photos for profit? What kind of profits are there to mine data in google photos?

> What kind of profits are there to mine data in google photos?

Are you asking why data is valuable or what data can be found in photos? They could pour over every detail captured on camera taking note of locations, any products seen the background of your shots, the types of clothes you and your family/friends wear, who wears or doesn't wear makeup, etc) then they can use facial recognition to identify everyone in your pictures (photographed intentionally or not) and determine their relationships to you and each other then update everyone's dossiers with whatever new information they managed to gather from your pics.

Or they could just jerk off to your nudes. Who knows.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#129

Post by rockengineer84 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #78

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To whom do you believe google has disclosed private user photos?

they're so big disclosing those photos to their algorithms is questionable privacy-wise.

what is the privacy loss outcome that you are suggesting has happened as a result of photos being disclosed to algorithms?

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#130

Post by caf » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

griffinkelly wrote: post #74

part1of2 wrote: post #5

> Anil Sabharwal, Google Photos’ then-head, said in a blog post when the service launched in 2015. “And when we say a lifetime of memories, we really mean it.” Most of Google’s product strategy has been bait & switch, and I saythat with all due to respect to the engineers. It’s the leaders who make these decisions

I'm an avid photographer and had a few friends who were hooked on google photos, I've always been skeptical because I know how pricey storage can get and figured this would always happen. I'm glad I didn't move all my photos onto Google Photos like my friends, I don't envy their situation now.

Their situation of having to pay $24 a year?