Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

androidauthority.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#11

Post by rkagerer »

ivell wrote: post #5

It is more of an attempt to get real world IDs. Yesterday I was forced to enter phone number for first time for "login verification". I didn't request any 2FA. They also made it clear they would save the number. Alternative was not logging in. Probably a A/B testing attempt.

It's stupid how phone numbers have become a proxy indicator for "is a distinct and legitimate human". Do they enforce this in all geographies or are there still places in the world where Internet is available but cellphones and phone numbers aren't common?

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#12

Post by ChrisRR »

ivell wrote: post #5

It is more of an attempt to get real world IDs. Yesterday I was forced to enter phone number for first time for "login verification". I didn't request any 2FA. They also made it clear they would save the number. Alternative was not logging in. Probably a A/B testing attempt.

I think it's more likely that it's to limit people getting unlimited storage with multiple accounts by limiting it to 15gb per phone number

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#13

Post by kotaKat »

marysol5 wrote: post #9
rokkamokka wrote: post #2

I remember the magic that was 1GB (and "infinite" because it kept slowly growing) email storage back when Hotmail gave you maybe 5MB. Crazy to think it was over 20 years ago.

When GMail launched, there was loads of wrappers people wrote to use it as a file store instead of E-Mail, because it was so much for the time.... But now E-Mail, like the rest of the internet is so damn heavy, 1GB gets eaten up in no time.

GMailFS! The Google File System! Such a novel idea at the time to let Google back up all our stuff...

... and then 20 years later I wonder how much of a mistake that was.

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#15

Post by pndy »

rkagerer wrote: post #11
ivell wrote: post #5

It is more of an attempt to get real world IDs. Yesterday I was forced to enter phone number for first time for "login verification". I didn't request any 2FA. They also made it clear they would save the number. Alternative was not logging in. Probably a A/B testing attempt.

It's stupid how phone numbers have become a proxy indicator for "is a distinct and legitimate human". Do they enforce this in all geographies or are there still places in the world where Internet is available but cellphones and phone numbers aren't common?

It is stupid but today that makes sense in places where SIM card requires registration by full first and last name - which is majority of the world. You have to register SIM otherwise phone will be working with emergency services only. And that gives the possibility of identifying you by your phone number on whatever service, platform that asks you to provide phone number for security reasons.

I really don't want to spread gloom here but last 15 years felt like stripping down anonymity by both law and social engineering. And now we're facing even more direct online verification under the classic pretense of "think of the children". The Wild West period of the Internet is over and what soon will arrive should concern us all.

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#16

Post by mcraiha »

andOlga wrote: post #10

I am extremely confused by the fact that... you basically can't make a Google account without providing a phone number anymore, can you? The article even says as much. So what is this? In what scenario would this actually manifest?

If you have Android tablet with WLAN only connection I assume you can still create a new Google account from setup wizard without phone number. (I have not tested this)

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#17

Post by lifestyleguru »

> Users can “unlock” the full 15GB of free storage by adding a phone number to their account.

On my last login to twenty years old Gmail account I was really surprised how it's possible to dismiss the "enter your phone number" screen, while other email providers deman 3d face scan and bank statements. Well, here we are...

On the other hand I have twenty years old Gmail account which works without them knowing my phone number, and access codes exported maybe decade ago and they are still valid. For a service I paid nothing, that's beyond impressing.

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#18

Post by Leherenn »

magicalhippo wrote: post #14

I'm guessing 90%+ of my Gmail inbox could be deleted without me batting an eye, I just can't be bothered because the UX t do so is horrible. Who on earth thought deleting 50 mails at a time is sufficient in the days of multi-GB inboxes?

It's also annoying you cannot delete the attachments whilst keeping the text of the email. It's all or nothing.

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#19

Post by lifestyleguru »

Leherenn wrote: post #18
magicalhippo wrote: post #14

I'm guessing 90%+ of my Gmail inbox could be deleted without me batting an eye, I just can't be bothered because the UX t do so is horrible. Who on earth thought deleting 50 mails at a time is sufficient in the days of multi-GB inboxes?

It's also annoying you cannot delete the attachments whilst keeping the text of the email. It's all or nothing.

You both guys are today's lucky 10000! You can export entire gmail history with takeout and import the history locally to thunderbird. You can even make backup of it. Then delete everything and anything you want from the online gmail. Select 50 items at a time with "Select all" and delete page by page, go guys you can make it!

Re: The era of 15GB free Gmail storage is ending

#20

Post by ivell »

ChrisRR wrote: post #12
ivell wrote: post #5

It is more of an attempt to get real world IDs. Yesterday I was forced to enter phone number for first time for "login verification". I didn't request any 2FA. They also made it clear they would save the number. Alternative was not logging in. Probably a A/B testing attempt.

I think it's more likely that it's to limit people getting unlimited storage with multiple accounts by limiting it to 15gb per phone number

> Google has confirmed that it's testing a 5GB storage limit for some new Gmail users, unless they add their number.

If 5GB users don't have to enter phone, then I think they will not be able to stop unlimited usage anyway.

Post reply on HN