Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#151

Post by Frost1x » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #140

nicoburns wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Google's pricing on storage is more than reasonable. I pay £2.50/month for 200gb of storage which more than covers my lifetimes worth of photos so far (in full res with a fair few RAW photos in there too). And they're not deleting any photos that users already uploaded. I think Google deserve all the criticism they get for shutting down services. But this one seems to have been handled quite well.

Most will agree that the offer is reasonable. But is that good enough, in this case? Should it be legal to front-load your business by promising something, and then going back on that (not because you have to, but because you change your mind)? I feel like it should not, because the competitive advantage you get by offering things for free is incredibly huge. Whenever that gets a business to a place where people will…

It seems to me, markets have short term memory because markets are composed of people who also have short term memory. Bait and switch seems to be a quite effective market capture mechanism. Bait with something alluring at a loss, build momentum, then pull away once little could stop that momentum. Along the way, build in hurdles that make it difficult to transition away from the service through technical and other commitment hurdles.

Rinse repeat and as long as you have a decent product and enough capital to front-load the model and take initial loses, you seem to win everytime going forward. At this point, people even shun phrases like "vendor lock-in" like an external business dependency isn't a potential liability.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#152

Post by juloi » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

We need to get used to paying for online services from the start. It would change the dynamic of dumping hundreds of millions of dollars in VC money into startups that only focus on user growth.

If smaller startups were profitable, we would have more alternatives for all the basic online needs we now have like storage, and search products for digital content we cherish. Offering free products at a loss for years to steal users from competitors would not be as good a strategy as it now is.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#153

Post by terhechte » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #36

I honestly can't see the outrage here. Sure, they've closed their free tier, but they keep up the promise for Pixel owners and do not count images previously uploaded. That's really more than one can ask for in something they get for free .

As I understood it, it is only free for previous Pixel owners until they buy a new Pixel. So it is free for the lifetime of the device, not the users lifetime.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#154

Post by thehappypm » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #144

I pay $99/year for the consumer 2TB plan. It lets us store full size stills and videos. To put it in perspective, one family night out at a seafood restaurant costs about that much, and a couple of frappuccinos a month can add up to that much in a year. Then again, a 5TB hard drive is, what? $119 or less? It's hard to figure the sweet spot, but the convenience factor is huge.

Yeah, and Google Photos you can easily access no-nonsense from your phone, your friend’s house, multiple laptops, etc.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#155

Post by aitchnyu » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #101

elmo2you wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, Google's pricing on storage is more than reasonable That probably depends, on whether you factor in the profit Google makes from mining your data. That should be subtracted from their operating costs and only then compared to what they charge for the storage. My guess is that they'll make quite a killing on the thing, as a whole. Even besides the morally questionable aspects (of the data mining), consid…

Is google mining photos for profit? What kind of profits are there to mine data in google photos?

Google Photos could track a persons travel and dining and things we are fond of. Google Pay could track which friends we pay money to and where we hang out. An tourism council could target drinking buddies of somebody who visited there.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#156

Post by _f9cu » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

Haha. Cost savings from management at Google.

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#157

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #113

j7ake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is google mining photos for profit? What kind of profits are there to mine data in google photos?

Data for training neural networks?

Is unlabeled data even useful for that purpose?

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#158

Post by oli-g » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #36

I honestly can't see the outrage here. Sure, they've closed their free tier, but they keep up the promise for Pixel owners and do not count images previously uploaded. That's really more than one can ask for in something they get for free .

> but they keep up the promise for Pixel owners

True, but for how long?

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#159

Post by asah » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

what I want to know: why would storage prices increase when storage costs continue to plummet (and network ingress costs remain cheap due to asymmetric use vs serving)

spitballing...

- gphotos was free when google wanted the data for training algorithms. They now have the data they need and it's become a cost center. Given Android integration, that amount is substantial.

- the paid plans are underperforming, and this seemed like an easy way to catch up.

- the overall google "fleet" is facing capacity pressure across storage-intensive apps (e.g. gmail ?) and photos seemed like the easier solution, i.e. start charging and people will use less storage.

- mobile device camera resolution may be growing faster than storage costs are decreasing ?

- online photo hosting also requires serving the images (not just "backup") and users can't wrap their heads around a split charge for serving ?

- online storage costs are now dominated by the cost of power, real estate etc ? but as drives double in capacity, their power/etc costs should be halved as well...

thoughts?

Re: Google Photos hooked users with free unlimited storage. Now that's changing

#160

Post by swiley » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

I wish they would do this with gmail.

My dmarc reports say I'm authenticated and aligned but mail from my server goes to spam even though I'm the only user on the domain and never send automated or group emails. Relaying it via icloud fails everything but gets delivered to people's mailbox. WTF?