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Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

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Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#81

Post by redis_mlc »

t-writescode wrote: post #4
coolspot wrote: post #2

Google seems to be in some “cut all expenses” mode recently: + cancelled stadia game studio + cancelled free unlimited google photos + closed Chromium APIs for derived browsers + closed Google Music (replaced with YT Music) + froze hiring + cancelled new office leases

Google cancelling products is as common as the sun setting in the west. It’s what they do. Cancelling new office leases may have to do with WFH and a pandemic.

Google owns most of their US real estate - it's a core part of their overall investment strategy.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#82

Post by iscrewyou »

mcguire wrote: post #79
plantain wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your personal account unlimited free storage forever"... but they altered the deal and that storage went away. That deal was always time limited, and then was periodically extended for years and years until one day it wasn't. It was clearly…

Just like all of Google's other products?

I still miss google reader and Picasa. I don’t think I will ever get over those two losses.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#83

Post by dwohnitmok »

gruez wrote: post #63
federona wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote storage, redundancy, and portability. At $5/mo/tb. you can still access any of it anytime you want, you just pay for what you actually download.

shucked hard drives go for around $15/TB on sale. Buy three for redundancy and it's $45/TB. The break-even point for that setup would be 9 months.

You're also paying for spatial distance and independence. Redundant backups in the same location can all fail together. See https://youtu.be/OAI8S2houW4?t=285 for one amusing case.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#84

Post by TheHypnotist »

jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

Isn't iCloud just mirroring? If you delete it off your device, you lose it on your iCloud too.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#85

Post by staplers »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #84
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

Isn't iCloud just mirroring? If you delete it off your device, you lose it on your iCloud too.

They've recently changed it on macOS to allow you to free the hard drive space (file is in the cloud) but the metadata (file name) remains indexed on your computer.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#86

Post by kccqzy »

noAnswer wrote: post #27
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

> I use iCloud now. As long as you don't use it to store music... Basically same story, different file type: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250315803

That's different on so many levels. The photos you take are unique. The music you bought are not. They are produced by someone else. I personally have no qualms when Apple replaced my ripped MP3s with a DRM-free version from the iTunes Store.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#87

Post by vinay_ys »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #84
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

Isn't iCloud just mirroring? If you delete it off your device, you lose it on your iCloud too.

Nope. iCloud Drive is a virtual folder on your device.

When you drop a file into this drive, it will start "Uploading". Once it has uploaded, you will see "Remove Download" option which removes the local copy but keeps the copy in the cloud. If you click on such a file whose local copy is not present, it will "Download Now" (you can select and option-click and find this option as well).

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#88

Post by cafxx »

Just for sharing: my setup is something like the following exactly because, even though I like google photo, I always felt it was too good to last.

I have 2 NAS (one a old custom build running freenas, the other a QNAP) in 2 different continents. I use resilio sync to sync between them, and to automatically download photos from my phones to the two NAS (when the phones are charging and connected to wifi).

The two NAS also expose a network volume with all pictures, that is mounted on the PCs I use lightroom on. This is also how pictures from regular cameras can be ingested. Lightroom database backups also end up on that network volume.

Each one of the two NAS takes hourly snapshot of their FS (to protect against accidental deletion/overwrites). As data is rarely updated, these snapshots can be kept for years while using negligible space.

In addition, the qnap NAS backs everything up, encrypted, to glacier, just in case everything else fails.

Finally, the phones also sync to google photo in "high" quality, just as a convenience. If I don't care about quality, i can share from google photo. Otherwise I can share via the qnap NAS in original quality.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#89

Post by pkaye »

kyrra wrote: post #34
bilal4hmed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do yall have any remote positions?

(googler, opinions are my own). See: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22175150/google-return-o... We are WFH till September for sure, and they will be testing flex hours after that. Though, they are still office focused, so you need to live near the office/team you work for. Note that there are a few special cases where they let an individual be remote, but they tend to be very very outstanding developers. I've on…

That is unfortunate WFH will not be common. I live in the bay area but I have health issues that require I get treatment at evening and night and its stressful to run through rush hour traffic to start my treatment. I am somewhat tethered to employers close to home to save on commute time. The current WFH at my employer helps me save a lot of travel time. Now I even get spare time to exercise every day. I hope more companies continue to do it. But I guess even flex hours will help me balance things better.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#90

Post by mceachen »

hedora wrote: post #36
mceachen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm building a self-hosted, cross-platform one that you're welcome to try! https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/

It looks great, but lack of open source is a deal breaker. I wouldn’t mind paying for it, but what if I want to run it outside of docker (and not on Ubuntu?), let alone on an ARM or BSD machine? Consider using the BSL license!

Re: open source: There's already a bylaw that requires the code to be open-sourced in case PhotoStructure Inc. closes: https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/#if-photos...

Thanks for the suggestion of BSL: I'll look into that.

PhotoStructure runs pretty much anywhere Node.js runs (Windows, macOS, Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu, and any x64 docker host). You can certainly compile it on ARM: https://photostructure.com/server/photostructure-for-node/

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