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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?

#81

Post by antonkochubey »

doubled112 wrote: post #66
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 wonder if rclone would have behaved any better than the web UI.

rclone usually works much better for all those cloud storages with terrible UIs/native clients

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

#82

Post by antonkochubey »

OptionOfT wrote: post #56
bsder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does the same thing with iCloud. I had to go through a lot of hoops to get my wife's photos back down locally on the computer.

Apple also by default backs up your apps to the cloud. But it backs up the WHOLE package / folder / whatever terminology they use, including cached and redownloadable data. So if you have a game that has 10GB of cached data, it WILL upload that. Edge for me was >3GB. And then they have the following user-hostile 'features': 1. They offer a paltry 5GB. Hasn't changed since inception, but app sizes have ... tripped? I…

That's on app developers (I suspect mobile game developers are not the most competent of the bunch). My entire iPhone's backup is 4.6 GB, and my YouTube downloaded videos alone are way more than that.

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

#83

Post by tredre3 »

jmcphers wrote: post #24

Google is no better. My family mostly uses iPhones, and on a big extended family vacation, I suggested we use Google Photos to create a shared album to document the trip. Everyone installed the Google Photos app on their iPhone so they could contribute... which resulted in all of them having their email accounts disabled . What happened? Google Photos on the iPhone backs up all your photos by default, and, like Micro…

> The minute Google Photos was installed, it started backing up photos

Just to be clear: It will ask you before doing it.

If you refuse, it will ask you again and again and again. Sometimes with a slightly different prompt. Until you accidentally say yes.

But it does ask you.

Even though I agree with your overall conclusion that people should avoid google photos, this moment should also be a learning experience for your family to be more careful what they agree to. Popup fatigue is insidious, we all need to remain vigilant!

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

raincole wrote: post #73
legitster wrote: post #67

We've really got to stop calling every bad UI a dark pattern. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence." Having worked at MSFT I can tell you there's a LOT more incompetence than malice.

This particular case isn't a dark pattern, but the fact OSes are written under the assumption that users want to create an account for cloud services is. (Yes, by this definition Google, Microsoft and Apple are all dark patterners.)

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by surgical_fire »

scorpionfeet wrote: post #58
reddalo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux Mint is super easy to use. I've personally battle tested it with my elder parents. Given all the nagware present in Windows 11, I'd even say Linux Mint is easier than Windows. The most difficult part is probably the installation itself.

Not if you are coming from windows and are not a tech nerd. I don’t want to end up being tech support for some non techie I coerced into Linux. It is nowhere near as seamless as zealots like to believe. Been having this discussion since 1997.

I don't know the last time you tried - I made numerous attempts to migrate to Linux since 2003, until I finally made it for good in 2022.

Modern beginner friendly distros are genuinely more user friendly than Windows nowadays.

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

#87

Post by tredre3 »

antisthenes wrote: post #39
jmcphers wrote: post #24

Google is no better. My family mostly uses iPhones, and on a big extended family vacation, I suggested we use Google Photos to create a shared album to document the trip. Everyone installed the Google Photos app on their iPhone so they could contribute... which resulted in all of them having their email accounts disabled . What happened? Google Photos on the iPhone backs up all your photos by default, and, like Micro…

It also doesn't help that Google's free tier (15GB) is laughably small in 2026. HDD capacity and Google's profits grew many-fold since that was last increased (in 2012-ish?).

It is small, but if you look at their competition it's still competitive.

Only Mega offers more for free (20GB).

Microsoft offers 5GB.

Ente.io offers 10GB.

Proton.io offers 2GB (if you jump through some time-limited hoops, most of which defeats the purpose of using a privacy cloud, you get a whooping 5GB free instead)

Filen.io offers 10GB, but you can get 30GB if you do a similar dance to proton and spam your referral code everywhere.

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

#88

Post by Arainach »

legitster wrote: post #67

We've really got to stop calling every bad UI a dark pattern. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence." Having worked at MSFT I can tell you there's a LOT more incompetence than malice.

Forcing a cloud login for a desktop operating system is arguably a dark pattern.

Defaulting to uploading all locally saved documents to cloud storage is ABSOLUTELY a dark pattern.

The prompts every few months to "change back to recommended defaults" that make it easy to accidentally get into this state even if you made the correct decision previously to turn it off is a hellish black hole of a pattern.

All three are intentional, not incompetent.

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

#89

Post by II2II »

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…

And that is just a fraction of what WinUtil does ...

It has been a while since I booted Windows, but I am fairly certain you can still circumvent the OneDrive nonsense (which is what the article is about) by setting up a local account. There are likely simpler ways, since Windows still has the concept of local file storage. That doesn't excuse the dark patterns, but it does highlight that we sometimes over complicate solutions.

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

#90

Post by esseph »

reddalo wrote: post #72
scorpionfeet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you are coming from windows and are not a tech nerd. I don’t want to end up being tech support for some non techie I coerced into Linux. It is nowhere near as seamless as zealots like to believe. Been having this discussion since 1997.

Have you actually tried a modern distro like Linux Mint? Seriously, you don't even need to touch the terminal, everything is neatly organized in a single control panel (unlike the messy >2 control panels situation of Windows). You can easily install all the applications you want; even games thanks to Steam and Proton. It's easy to use, there are no ads, no preinstalled adware, no nagware, everything is fast and clean…

> modern distro

Let them cook...

> Linux Mint

Oh. :(

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