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

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

lzon.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 255 posts

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

#231

Post by ValentineC »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #215
joshstrange wrote: post #214

I'm shocked that I can't find a single top-level comment that understands that the general public does not back up their data. We can call OneDrive a dark pattern or saving customer's butts from themselves. If it wasn't the default: "What do you mean all my pictures are gone forever because I never turned on OneDrive?". I have no love for Microsoft but I'm having a really hard time seeing how it isn't the smart defau…

Synchronisation is not back-up. Dropbox is not a back-up mechanism. If files get deleted on the local host, they get deleted from OneDrive/Dropbox too.

Synchronisation isn't a complete backup, but it's another copy of one's data if one's device gets lost, stolen, or broken.

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

#232

Post by ValentineC »

Gazoche wrote: post #194

Not that it's any excuse, but Apple does something similar by saving your photos to iCloud and deleting them from your local storage without telling you. I have seen the following scenario play out twice already: - The free iCloud tier runs out of storage because of the photo backups - Apple spams the user with warning notifications and emails and incentives to upgrade - User sees that nonsense and decides they don't…

> Not that it's any excuse, but Apple does something similar by saving your photos to iCloud and deleting them from your local storage without telling you.

Photos > Download and Keep Originals.

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

#233

Post by ValentineC »

rconti wrote: post #104

Office in the Mac is AWFUL about this. By default, it saves to a OneDrive you never asked for and can never find. You can't permanently change the location of your saved documents-- just change it once, and the setting stays "forever", maybe, until a software update fucks it up for you again. Auto-save is disabled if you're not using OneDrive. Nobody asked for OneDrive. It makes it a goddamned nightmare to find your…

> Office in the Mac is AWFUL about this.

> By default, it saves to a OneDrive you never asked for and can never find. You can't permanently change the location of your saved documents-- just change it once, and the setting stays "forever", maybe, until a software update fucks it up for you again.

I don't remember ever encountering this problem, and I just checked that I am definitely logged into my Microsoft account for whatever reason.

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

#234

Post by ValentineC »

vachina wrote: post #192
deafpolygon wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- false (you have to opt in) - false (it depends on the app) - depends on your cloud settings - if you opt in, yes - well if your storage is full, you kind of need to know - they do, it's called time machine. you need a local disk for that.

I'm not sure if you even use any Apple products. I recently reset my iPhone and started from scratch (because of another system storage bloat issue) and THOSE WERE THE DEFAULTS, I HAD TO TURN EVERYTHING OFF MANUALLY. It didn't even ask. > time machine Oh great, let's get a dedicated, proprietary device just to store MY binary blobs. I'm not even sure if Timemachine supports exactly the features offered by iCloud. I c…

> Oh great, let's get a dedicated, proprietary device just to store MY binary blobs.

Time Machine is (was?) mostly a macOS Sparse Bundle folder accessed over SMB. Many consumer NASes support Time Machine.

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

#235

Post by tracker1 »

kn100 wrote: post #20

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…

I setup cloud sync on my nas to sync my dropbox, google and onedrive accounts... I only have dropbox actually installed anymore as it's just what I mostly use.

I mostly tend to keep some important information synced to the others, for multi-access in case of emergency. I also have a bitwarden account for secrets.

I have a grandfathered outlook.com custom account that I still use for MS stuff on occasion, but I switched off windows for my personal use a few years ago now, when they put ads in the start menu search on insiders.

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

#236

Post by tracker1 »

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…

For the office apps, the cloud versions work well enough... I think even Visio (additional fees) cloud/web version actually works okay now, I haven't used it recently. At least well enough for the occasional interaction if Libre/Only Office don't work well enough for you.

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

#238

Post by caconym_ »

qwerpy wrote: post #121
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…

For me the apps that don’t exist on Linux are Fusion360 (3d printing modeling) and OneNote (shared notebook with my non-technical wife that syncs to mobile). I also have zero tolerance for needing to tweak settings to make a game work on Linux. So I’m stuck on windows for now. Every month I have to spend an hour fighting some new asshole behavior concocted up by some ambitious Microsoft product manager. The latest on…

I understand that everyone has their own needs and Linux still might not be a great fit, but just in case it's helpful, here are some possibly-comparable Linux-friendly alternatives to what you mentioned:

> Fusion360

Depending on your needs, Onshape could be a good portable option since it runs in a browser. I use it for all my 3D printing pursuits and have made some fairly complex parts. And it's free if you don't mind people theoretically being able to search for and see your work. Not a problem for me since I'm not doing anything proprietary or making BDSM gear or whatever---if my shitty projects help somebody else with theirs, I'm all for it.

> OneNote

I don't think Obsidian does synchronous collaboration well (could be wrong) but for asynchronous collaboration it ought to be fine; their sync product works very well and I haven't ever had to fiddle with anything. My non-technical wife could use it with no issue (but in practice we use Apple Notes).

I don't think it's a drop-in replacement for OneNote, but it might serve the purpose.

> zero tolerance for needing to tweak settings to make a game work on Linux

This has gotten a lot better. With a distro like Bazzite (which I just use as my general purpose desktop now), pretty much everything works out of the box unless it has an anticheat that's specifically blocking Linux.

I would not have been willing to say this a year ago (and I know plenty of people have been saying it for a long time, and I generally disagreed with them), but today I really think gaming on Linux is ready for general adoption. In the last few months I've totally abandoned Windows for gaming, which was the last thing I was using it for (in a VM).

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

#239

Post by theolivenbaum »

deckar01 wrote: post #151

Microsoft used to have an app called Office Lens. It helped color correct and keystone adjust documents scanned with a phone camera. They pushed an update that gutted the app and said this app has been replaced by OneDrive. After installing OneDrive and dodging multiple dark pattern storage upsells, I discovered the OneDrive app doesn’t have any of the document scanning tools. I’m sure someone got a bonus for increas…

It's worse than that - the feature exists in the paid OneDrive app, it lets you scan, edit, add pages etc just like the office lens. It just doesn't save the output - scanned files just disappear in the void.

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

#240

Post by dtkav »

caconym_ wrote: post #238
qwerpy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the apps that don’t exist on Linux are Fusion360 (3d printing modeling) and OneNote (shared notebook with my non-technical wife that syncs to mobile). I also have zero tolerance for needing to tweak settings to make a game work on Linux. So I’m stuck on windows for now. Every month I have to spend an hour fighting some new asshole behavior concocted up by some ambitious Microsoft product manager. The latest on…

I understand that everyone has their own needs and Linux still might not be a great fit, but just in case it's helpful, here are some possibly-comparable Linux-friendly alternatives to what you mentioned: > Fusion360 Depending on your needs, Onshape could be a good portable option since it runs in a browser. I use it for all my 3D printing pursuits and have made some fairly complex parts. And it's free if you don't m…

> I don't think Obsidian does synchronous collaboration well (could be wrong) but for asynchronous collaboration it ought to be fine.

If you want to do real-time collaboration in Obsidian there are a few plugins available. relay.md (mine), peerdraft, screengarden, and YAOS are some options.

Post reply on HN