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

lzon.ca

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

#111

Post by cachius »

wallstop wrote: post #99
kn100 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and another fun thing! I eventually just emptied the OneDrive so Microsoft would stop bothering me. This was maybe six months ago or so. Microsoft confirms I am storing nothing there. Just a week or two ago I got yet another email begging for money because my OneDrive was apparently full. It was a genuine email, I went as far as checking the headers for SPF/DKIM. When I signed into onedrive, still empty!

Anecdata, they might have had a system error. My Microsoft account that I use the free tier OneDrive on had the same email sent (you're over x% full, consider upgrading!). I suspected everything you did - eventually I logged in after verifying the email - nope, 5% usage or so. I then went and deleted more stuff, but my money would be on a reporting glitch than a malicious money campaign.

A system error on a file storage system makes it even worse! But easy to imagine after the recent report on Azure https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47616242

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

#112

Post by ripharamberip »

Esn024 wrote: post #79
liendolucas wrote: post #30

From the WinUtil screenshots presented in the article I'm absolutely shocked about all the things that you presumably want to turn off or delete to have a "clean" Windows (to some extent if that's possible at all). It's also ridiculous that you need an external tool to easily disable/remove/uninstall every single thing you don't want . I haven't used Windows since many many years ago and the few times I sit down to i…

Winhance for removing things like OneDrive and the option to KEEP them removed even if a future Windows Update tries to reinstall them. You can also save your configuration to easily get all your preferences back on a fresh Windows install. I use this instead of WinUtil (which I haven't tried yet... is there any way in which it is better?). Windhawk for quality of life improvements if you don't like some of Windows's…

It's just so crazy that we are living in times where a notepad can be too slow. Wtf has happened?? How can they mess up a fucking Notepad App? Luckily I switched to MacOS mostly some time ago. Also has its issue but nothing compared to winslop

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

#114

Post by [deleted] »

rcxdude wrote: post #95

What's also irritating is that onedrive will use some kind of 'smart' caching system to delete the local copy of a file. Which is all fine and dandy until you need said file when you don't have an internet connection. Explaining this to users is very difficult, they just know that something broke and usually when it was very important. (OK, what's even more stupid is IT departments who don't understand that onedrive…

[deleted]

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

#115

Post by wallstop »

cachius wrote: post #111
wallstop wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata, they might have had a system error. My Microsoft account that I use the free tier OneDrive on had the same email sent (you're over x% full, consider upgrading!). I suspected everything you did - eventually I logged in after verifying the email - nope, 5% usage or so. I then went and deleted more stuff, but my money would be on a reporting glitch than a malicious money campaign.

A system error on a file storage system makes it even worse! But easy to imagine after the recent report on Azure https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47616242

Sorry, what I meant by "system error" was more "notification system error". Not error as in "data loss", error as in "reporting".

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

#116

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

Recently I noticed autosave is not enabled by default on word, I clicked to enable and it prompted me to save to one drive as apparently that’s the only way to enable autosave, a feature which has been around since ~Word 2000.

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

#117

Post by knollimar »

bsder wrote: post #38
geophile wrote: post #33

From perusing reddit, I see some Windows users tempted to consider Linux, often because of Windows 11. But then, many of them won't move because: it doesn't work just like Windows; there is some Windows application they must have, or maybe they just don't want to learn the alternatives. Or they use word/excel/powerpoint and have to interact with others who do also. The brainwashing, high tolerance for pain and misery…

> maybe they just don't want to learn the alternatives. Or they use word/excel/powerpoint and have to interact with others who do also. If they're on Office 365, they could be on Linux.

The browser version of excel is vastly inferior for power users

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

#118

Post by 1116574 »

This has been default experience for "normies" for quite some time now. Same for Google gallery which syncs to gdrive.

Just today we had a guy who got similar messages from one drive as one in the blogpost, and made the mistake of asking chatgpt about it. After renaming, moving, deleting and even doing regedit as llm instructef, some of the files went missing, some we managed to find.

Few weeks ago I had to explain over the phone how to setup windows without ms account, and we had to resort to turning off WiFi in the house lmao

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

#119

Post by dpark »

mehdibl wrote: post #10

So to free up space you delete folders instead of moving your familyvphotos that you don't have backup. Can we stop a bit this all evil Microsoft fault? And the author have a solution. Yeah those headline are buzzing.

Lots of people are not tech savvy. It’s entirely believable that someone who doesn’t understand why their stuff is in OneDrive in the first place also wouldn’t understand that they could move data somewhere else to fix the issue.

Most people I know who don’t work in tech have 90% of their stuff sitting in their Desktop and the other 10% in Documents. These people don’t know how to create a folder named “c:\stuffidontwantinonedrive”.

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

#120

Post by TitaRusell »

trinsic2 wrote: post #110
rcxdude wrote: post #95

What's also irritating is that onedrive will use some kind of 'smart' caching system to delete the local copy of a file. Which is all fine and dandy until you need said file when you don't have an internet connection. Explaining this to users is very difficult, they just know that something broke and usually when it was very important. (OK, what's even more stupid is IT departments who don't understand that onedrive…

After Onedrive uploads all of your data to the cloud without your consent it sets all files as online only. Meaning the file will not live on your computer unless you click on it, then it will download a copy of that specific file to your system. If we didn't have criminals in our government right now I would think that this would be a huge anti-trust violation worth perusing.

I had to completely nuke OneDrive from windows.

With a 2 terabyte SSD I'm unlikely to ever run out of space.

Automatically opt in and make the settings deliberately vague and obtuse- companies that have FAITH in their product don't need to do this.

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