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Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

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Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#11

Post by selectively »

asdefghyk wrote: post #7
selectively wrote: post #2

[flagged]

RE "...Cloud Storage not enabled by Default ..." The issue is that Microsoft is moving users files to its cloud with out explaining to people CLEARLY what is happening. And getting their customers agreement. And this deception, in MY OPINION is obviously by design , meant to grow their cloud storage revenue thru upgrade offers If Microsoft was doing it properly, it would be CLEARLY explained to customer what was to h…

OneDrive seems pretty clear to me. It works identically to the way the same functionality works under macOS.

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#12

Post by Fabricio20 »

selectively wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Somewhat related but I was talking about the OneDrive thing yesterday with a few non-tech friends and it has backfired so many times it's insane. OneDrive seems to take over the folder handling in windows for some reason, instead of just copying the data to the cloud. Any game you play puts stuff in My Games under Documents and you just installed windows? Yep, its gonna sync your entire FFXIV patch files into the cloud, that's 180gb of patches as the launcher downloads the game. tmodloader? Yep and then it's going to fail to launch the game. Skyrim and Starfield save data? Yep. Literally had to help someone troubleshoot that yesterday and the fix is just to uninstall OneDrive so the folder becomes a normal folder again. Had the ffxiv issue myself and the funniest part was getting a notification from microsoft to update my storage plan because it was full... I dont think people would be so much annoyed by OneDrive if it worked like other sync apps that just.. copied your file to the cloud. And maybe if it wasn't an annoying pop-up when you installed windows and didn't set it up (if we logged in, just set it up automatically and dont bother the user), etc..

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#13

Post by Bratmon »

dijit wrote: post #9
Bratmon wrote: post #4

Email scammers often make their initial emails intentionally full of red flags to automatically filter out anyone smart enough to avoid the scam, and leave them with a pool of people willing to accept any amount of scummyness and abuse. Windows is the exact same thing but for operating systems. If you're still using it in 2026, it's because you want to be a mark.

99% of people don't choose their OS. They buy "a laptop" and it has an OS on it. Or they go to work and are provided "a computer" and have very little say (or ability to change) what it's running, even if they had the impetus, know-how and knowledge that other things even exist.. you're always running the risk that things will break for you. This is the moat Windows has. Not Games like people think, that's a strongho…

Exactly! They've gotten very good at mark-identification over the years.

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#14

Post by Fabricio20 »

selectively wrote: post #11
asdefghyk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE "...Cloud Storage not enabled by Default ..." The issue is that Microsoft is moving users files to its cloud with out explaining to people CLEARLY what is happening. And getting their customers agreement. And this deception, in MY OPINION is obviously by design , meant to grow their cloud storage revenue thru upgrade offers If Microsoft was doing it properly, it would be CLEARLY explained to customer what was to h…

OneDrive seems pretty clear to me. It works identically to the way the same functionality works under macOS.

I dont know if it works like macOS since I dont use macOS - but it's not a simple copy-to-cloud. It actively replaces file handling in those folders, which breaks a bunch of applications like games that save stuff in Documents/My Games..

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#16

Post by selectively »

Fabricio20 wrote: post #14
selectively wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OneDrive seems pretty clear to me. It works identically to the way the same functionality works under macOS.

I dont know if it works like macOS since I dont use macOS - but it's not a simple copy-to-cloud. It actively replaces file handling in those folders, which breaks a bunch of applications like games that save stuff in Documents/My Games..

The way iCloud Desktop works is that it uploads your stuff to the cloud, using your iCloud Storage quota.

The way that OneDrive works is that it uploads stuff to OneDrive, using your Microsoft 365 storage quota.

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#17

Post by selectively »

asdefghyk wrote: post #15
selectively wrote: post #2

[flagged]

RE Uninstalling Edge. There will likely be some unintended side effect - is my experience

Nope. This is an officially supported function, required under law. Edge WebView remains present for functionality that requires it.

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#18

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

I had a similar issue. I ended my O365 subscription. Outlook kept complaining I had exceeded my free storage, which surprised me because I've never used OneDrive for anything, and my email storage was well under the limit.

I deleted a ton of useless emails anyway, but that didn't fix the problem. Somehow I had more than 25 gigs of space being used on a cloud system I'd never used, tied to an email account which supposedly needed less than 500 Mb of storage.

Eventually after a lot of searching I discovered the magic page that gave me direct access to OneDrive's actual storage - which was not, somehow, the page that gave access to the files.

OneDrive was storing a lot of attachments, and deleting emails and clearing the trash didn't delete them.

Or something like that. Whatever the magic words were, I did eventually find them and fix the problem.

But it took a while, I had to resubscribe for free for a month to make it happen, there was a lot of confusing side information online suggesting I should open a ticket (good luck with that on a consumer account) and generally it Just Didn't Work.

I can imagine people resubscribing for another year just to make it all go away.

This has been my lifelong experience of Microsoft - shockingly poor, contemptuous, or downright stupid interface design, Kafka-esque indifference to the user experience, and constant unwanted friction and complication, around a suite of core consumer products that are mediocre to start with.

Re: Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?

#20

Post by kn100 »

I got caught out by exactly this, and I'm not exactly tech illiterate. what made it even more annoying is by the time I'd realised what had happened, it was practically impossible to get the files back out of OneDrive (since I decided that this was enough Windows for me, and went back to Linux), since the webui does NOT handle downloading lots of small files well, and you just end up getting a partially complete zip file. I gave up in the end as nothing in there was particularly important. This is an incredibly annoying default.
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