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Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

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Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#21

Post by laborcontract »

tgma wrote: post #19
laborcontract wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. The e-waste related to including chargers in the box is a real thing. That change also allowed them to halve the size of the boxes, effectively doubling the shipping yield. On a billion-device level that's a non-trivial change. And yes, it's good for their bottom line. And yes, it effectively increased the pri…

If that was the genuine intent, they would have deducted the price to buy one from the device, but that never happens, so allow me to be skeptical of the reason.

I totally get the sentiment of your comment. They have pricing power, and they flex it. It doesn't feel great, I agree, especially when it comes from the largest company in the world.

Perhaps I was being too flippant in my original comment because I really miss the apple that cared a lot less about profitability and would give you a free new model year macbook when your old one broke (probably a lot worse for the environment too lol)

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#22

Post by fabian2k »

epups wrote: post #12

This looks like a change in policy for personal student accounts. If this person is doing something related to research, their own group should provide a solution for data management and backups. I really don't see the problem here, other than using "the environment" as a bullshit excuse for cost savings.

Yes, the actual scientific data should be in a central storage location or ideally in an SDMS or similar system.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#23

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Almondsetat wrote: post #2

Interesting, I personally use my institutional OneDrive sparingly, but I would love to see my professors and IT staff scramble to switch from 1TB of cloud storage to 20GB. I have always opposed selling everything to MS and nobody has ever cared to offer alternatives (only Moodle and it's badly configured lol)

Professors don't make those decisions, I'm a professor at a university that uses the full MS suite and I hate it with all my heart.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#24

Post by agilob »

laborcontract wrote: post #14
tgma wrote: post #10

Apple cut the phone charger for environmental reasons too. It always has to be the end user who sacrifices for the environment.

Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. The e-waste related to including chargers in the box is a real thing. That change also allowed them to halve the size of the boxes, effectively doubling the shipping yield. On a billion-device level that's a non-trivial change. And yes, it's good for their bottom line. And yes, it effectively increased the pri…

> Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos.

If only any USB-C cable was compatible with iPhone or Pixel it would be fine, but I have 4 USB-C cables that don't work with them.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#25

Post by crimbles »

chromanoid wrote: post #17

While it seems to be a business oriented move by MS, I can vividly imagine how such institutions wastefully neglect practically free storage... Having to store data for five years seems to me to be a lame excuse.

Yeah it’ll be O365 family next.

Then O365 business.

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#26

Post by justworkout »

laborcontract wrote: post #14
tgma wrote: post #10

Apple cut the phone charger for environmental reasons too. It always has to be the end user who sacrifices for the environment.

Honestly I don't feel the sacrifice. My house is flooded with old chargers. They're in a bin like old legos. The e-waste related to including chargers in the box is a real thing. That change also allowed them to halve the size of the boxes, effectively doubling the shipping yield. On a billion-device level that's a non-trivial change. And yes, it's good for their bottom line. And yes, it effectively increased the pri…

I think for "power users" or people who buy/receive devices often, it's easy to have way too many chargers. A lot of other people buy a new phone every 3-5 years, and by that point, your cables are probably worn out and your charger might even be broken and some of them lost. Older chargers also operate at a much lower wattage, and with batteries getting bigger, charging time will be dramatically longer for people still using old ones (assuming they're even compatible, since not everything used USB3 a few years ago).

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#27

Post by misnome »

Terretta wrote: post #9

It sounds like it's McGill asking "And this is why we [McGill] are asking you to reduce the data stored in your OneDrive and in your Outlook email." https://www.mcgill.ca/polling/channels/news/important-onedri... But, amazingly, Microsoft did argue this nonsense: 1. security risk of storing files 2. environmental impact 3. ability for Microsoft to innovate more by deleting your stuff https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/e…

(Edit: Above post originally read only “Microsoft did no such thing” before edit. Evidently updated their post after actually reading the thread).

Weird, you should tell Microsoft this, because I don’t know what it was before but the link in that thread says they are:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/microsoft...

Limiting to 100TB pooled and $30/TB/month for extra storage.

One of the reasons explicitly given being “Environmental Impact”

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#28

Post by lnxg33k1 »

Just a philosophical question, that I think is on topic, I wonder how many cloud services will have to give people unpleasant experiences for those same people to stop going all in on cloud services, especially in the era of we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions without notice at our discretion

At this point I’m not even mad with Microsoft

Re: Microsoft limits institutional cloud storage space for environmental reasons

#29

Post by gambiting »

ok_dad wrote: post #18
tgma wrote: post #10

Apple cut the phone charger for environmental reasons too. It always has to be the end user who sacrifices for the environment.

They cut chargers so they wouldn’t have to change them for the EU. The environment, as usual, is for greenwashing the move.

Eh? That makes zero sense. The EU mandates the type of port on your device, not the type of charger bundled or not bundled with it. It makes even less sense given that the Apple chargers were always just dumb USB-A chargers with a separate cable - and apple still bundles the cable. So the actual charger part wouldn't have changed no matter what EU decided on this matter.
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