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Because it's anti-competitive dumping. The dirty secret of SV is that it's an enormous dumping scheme: burn billions of dollars of money to offer 'free' or good

Because it's anti-competitive dumping. The dirty secret of SV is that it's an enormous dumping scheme: burn billions of dollars of money to offer 'free' or goods and services, gain a dominant position in the market by driving the honestly priced competition into the ground, then jack up the prices and fleece the customers. Uber is the poster boy of this strategy, but it's not the only one. The honest approach would be to either grandfather existing customers at the promised price point ($0) possibly at a loss, or shut it down and offer a one-click migrate-my-data button and empower customers to shop around for the price / quality tradeoff they are willing to pay for. Of course, that will never happen, because antitrust in this country is toothless, paid for by the exact same corporations that engage in anti-competitive behavior.

nybble41 6y ago
> The honest approach would be to either grandfather existing customers at the promised price point ($0)… This is exactly what they're doing. According to the announcement, photos uploaded in "high quality" (the previous free/unmetered tier) before June 1, 2021 will remain exempt from the storage quota. Only new photos uploaded after June 1, 2021 count against the quota. So not only are all the existing photos and videos grandfathered in, you even have seven whole months after the change was announced to upload new material which will also be grandfathered in. Google is also very good about data migration; you can download all your photos and videos along with a wealth of other account data in reasonably open formats via Google Takeout and migrate it wherever you wish.
- dontfiremepls 6y ago
  We are going to lawyer this, aren't we? The service was promised for free, not per photo storage. The expectation is that the service will continue to be free. From what you're saying, (most of) the future use of the service, which consists of uploading and storing new photos, will be charged. Velvet gloves dumping.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    > The service was promised for free… Please point out exactly where Google, or any of their competitors, ever promised that any of their free services would remain available—much less free—forever. Anyone who expected that was kidding themselves, especially given the history of high-profile services being shut down or significantly redesigned on a regular basis.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Launch announcement: They’re pitching it as having “unlimited storage”.... Yep! We were right. Google Photos will launch today, for free. https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/confirmed-google-will-launch-google-photos-a-standalone-photo-host-with-unlimited-storage/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/confirmed-google-will-laun... HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618965 Highlight comment: Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP. -- XJOKOLAT https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619340
      - nybble41 6y ago
        The "unlimited storage" in the pitch was obviously referring to uploaded photos not being counted against your storage quota, not a guarantee that this arrangement would continue indefinitely.
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        Techcruch, arguably an entity with some experience and credibility in assessing product and service offerings, noted both "unlimited" and "free" in describing Google Photos. Which might be considered a presumptive public expectaction.
        nybble41 6y ago
- toiletfuneral 6y ago
  but they definitely KEEP copies of all your photos after you leave, that didn't feel great to me
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hinkley 6y ago
  That is not 'exactly' what they're doing. It's loosely what they're doing. Being grandfathered into a service means you get to keep using it the way you did, full stop. This service is about uploading and downloading files. All they're preserving is the ability to download them, not upload.
  - csallen 6y ago
    Expecting them to not only exempt you from paying for your previously uploaded photos, but to also allow you to continue to upload photos for free indefinitely seems unreasonable to me. That's not what I'd expect from being grandfathered in.
pgt 6y ago
This seems like a fallacy. VC subsidies benefit consumers until they run out of money or raise prices. As long as the market remains free, there will be new entrants. The problem is regulation that keeps competitors out. In some cases Big Co. lobbies for this regulation, but often it is government that kills competition by attempting to tax said Big Co., or adds expensive compliance.
- dontfiremepls 6y ago
  We want to build a new car. A fancy electric car. We raise money from investors, build plant, hire engineers, designers and workers, establish a supply chain and a distribution chain. How should we fairly price the product? A. $0 for the next 10 years. We've got really rich investors. B. $X0,000, in line with the fair market price for a new vehicle. The role of capital money is to cover capital expenses (duh), especially in the early stages, not to subsidize selling the product at a dumping price for a prolonged time period.
  - eslaught 6y ago
    I can see an argument for this for Tesla, because of the capital costs. I can see an argument for this for Uber, because of the network effects. But I cannot see an argument for this for Google Photos, because the network effects are not that strong, and the capital costs are directly proportional to how many users you have. (You don't need to scale our your datacenter/cloud until you actually have users to justify doing so.) So while I agree this can be an issue in general, I'm not seeing the argument for it here. I think it would actually be relatively easy for a competitor to get started in this space.
    - jokethrowaway 6y ago
      I think you're underestimating the cost of leaving Google Photos. Sure, it's not too bad but I need to migrate off a new platform literally 5 years of photos (+ face tagging), explain it to all my relatives, make them install another app. Or I can just start paying 2$ per month. I'm not too bothered but it's a clear bait and switch. To be fair I wasn't sure if this was coming or not given Google is not exactly a small business and could afford to spend some storage money to lock people in better in their ecosystem.
drstewart 6y ago
I really hate that low value, reddit-style political comments like this are becoming more common on HN nowadays.
- baud147258 6y ago
  I don't see what value your comment is bringing either
  - drstewart 6y ago
    None, to be fair. But I do like to think pushing back at charged rhetoric will help maintain high quality discussion here.
- Paianni 6y ago
  Practise what you preach.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I don't see how that is low value, partisan, or reddit-style. The argument that this is a kind of dumping is insightful and not partisan. It is political in the same way as everything is political.
  - drstewart 6y ago
    >I don't see how that is low value, partisan, or reddit-style. Not surprising considering you just came to HN last year, probably from reddit, bringing the same toxic discussion style. >It is political in the same way as everything is political. Yep. There it is. Flooding HN with politics to push an agenda.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      I've been lurking HN for years. I'm not the one insulting anyone or accusing people of being in bad faith. >>It is political in the same way as everything is political. >Yep. There it is. Flooding HN with politics to push an agenda. No, it isn't. It's a descriptive statement. If you describe politics as "what we do together", which is the only definition that makes a discussion on Google's business practices (which is totally in the spirit of the website), then essentially everything is politics because of the effect discussing the world has on what should be done.
MKinley 6y ago
Google's "business" model has been in question for years now, I now am extra glad that I already downloaded all my data from Google, acquired my own domain and set up a nextcloud server. If I need more space, I buy another/larger hard drive, and never need to worry about data collection, services shutting down or prices changing.
- masterofmisc 6y ago
  But what do you do for off-site back though? Do you have a strategy for the 'house burning down' scenario?
  - MKinley 6y ago
    Yes I do, offline and offsite backup of important and valuable data stored on a HDD at my parents. Not the most seemless or user friendly options, but the privacy and security of my data is more important. I have also considered looking into mirroring my data on a trusted hosting provider for some day when I can afford to pay.
    - masterofmisc 6y ago
      Yeah, that's a good strategy I suppose even if you do need to cart around a HDD to update every so often. You just need to make sure your parents backup is updated periodically.
      - MKinley 6y ago
        The carting around and updating is made simpler with a tool I have found and love, free file sync. One of the few tools I buy into (even though its free).
        masterofmisc 6y ago
        Checking it out now.
  - 6y ago
majani 6y ago
No one ever hikes the prices up significantly after running at a big loss. What usually ends up happening is that loss making companies adopt a model where their shareholders are the actual customers that the business makes money from. The goal becomes to IPO and leave index funds and pension funds holding the bag and playing hot potato with it. In a perverse way it's kind of sustainable. Hate not the player, but the game.

nybble41 6y ago

> The honest approach would be to either grandfather existing customers at the promised price point ($0)… This is exactly what they're doing. According to the announcement, photos uploaded in "high quality" (the previous free/unmetered tier) before June 1, 2021 will remain exempt from the storage quota. Only new photos uploaded after June 1, 2021 count against the quota. So not only are all the existing photos and videos grandfathered in, you even have seven whole months after the change was announced to upload new material which will also be grandfathered in. Google is also very good about data migration; you can download all your photos and videos along with a wealth of other account data in reasonably open formats via Google Takeout and migrate it wherever you wish.

dontfiremepls 6y ago
We are going to lawyer this, aren't we? The service was promised for free, not per photo storage. The expectation is that the service will continue to be free. From what you're saying, (most of) the future use of the service, which consists of uploading and storing new photos, will be charged. Velvet gloves dumping.
- nybble41 6y ago
  > The service was promised for free… Please point out exactly where Google, or any of their competitors, ever promised that any of their free services would remain available—much less free—forever. Anyone who expected that was kidding themselves, especially given the history of high-profile services being shut down or significantly redesigned on a regular basis.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Launch announcement: They’re pitching it as having “unlimited storage”.... Yep! We were right. Google Photos will launch today, for free. https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/confirmed-google-will-launch-google-photos-a-standalone-photo-host-with-unlimited-storage/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/confirmed-google-will-laun... HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618965 Highlight comment: Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP. -- XJOKOLAT https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619340
    - nybble41 6y ago
      The "unlimited storage" in the pitch was obviously referring to uploaded photos not being counted against your storage quota, not a guarantee that this arrangement would continue indefinitely.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Techcruch, arguably an entity with some experience and credibility in assessing product and service offerings, noted both "unlimited" and "free" in describing Google Photos. Which might be considered a presumptive public expectaction.
        nybble41 6y ago
toiletfuneral 6y ago
but they definitely KEEP copies of all your photos after you leave, that didn't feel great to me
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hinkley 6y ago
That is not 'exactly' what they're doing. It's loosely what they're doing. Being grandfathered into a service means you get to keep using it the way you did, full stop. This service is about uploading and downloading files. All they're preserving is the ability to download them, not upload.
- csallen 6y ago
  Expecting them to not only exempt you from paying for your previously uploaded photos, but to also allow you to continue to upload photos for free indefinitely seems unreasonable to me. That's not what I'd expect from being grandfathered in.

pgt 6y ago

This seems like a fallacy. VC subsidies benefit consumers until they run out of money or raise prices. As long as the market remains free, there will be new entrants. The problem is regulation that keeps competitors out. In some cases Big Co. lobbies for this regulation, but often it is government that kills competition by attempting to tax said Big Co., or adds expensive compliance.

dontfiremepls 6y ago
We want to build a new car. A fancy electric car. We raise money from investors, build plant, hire engineers, designers and workers, establish a supply chain and a distribution chain. How should we fairly price the product? A. $0 for the next 10 years. We've got really rich investors. B. $X0,000, in line with the fair market price for a new vehicle. The role of capital money is to cover capital expenses (duh), especially in the early stages, not to subsidize selling the product at a dumping price for a prolonged time period.
- eslaught 6y ago
  I can see an argument for this for Tesla, because of the capital costs. I can see an argument for this for Uber, because of the network effects. But I cannot see an argument for this for Google Photos, because the network effects are not that strong, and the capital costs are directly proportional to how many users you have. (You don't need to scale our your datacenter/cloud until you actually have users to justify doing so.) So while I agree this can be an issue in general, I'm not seeing the argument for it here. I think it would actually be relatively easy for a competitor to get started in this space.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    I think you're underestimating the cost of leaving Google Photos. Sure, it's not too bad but I need to migrate off a new platform literally 5 years of photos (+ face tagging), explain it to all my relatives, make them install another app. Or I can just start paying 2$ per month. I'm not too bothered but it's a clear bait and switch. To be fair I wasn't sure if this was coming or not given Google is not exactly a small business and could afford to spend some storage money to lock people in better in their ecosystem.

drstewart 6y ago

I really hate that low value, reddit-style political comments like this are becoming more common on HN nowadays.

baud147258 6y ago
I don't see what value your comment is bringing either
- drstewart 6y ago
  None, to be fair. But I do like to think pushing back at charged rhetoric will help maintain high quality discussion here.
Paianni 6y ago
Practise what you preach.
sudosysgen 6y ago
I don't see how that is low value, partisan, or reddit-style. The argument that this is a kind of dumping is insightful and not partisan. It is political in the same way as everything is political.
- drstewart 6y ago
  >I don't see how that is low value, partisan, or reddit-style. Not surprising considering you just came to HN last year, probably from reddit, bringing the same toxic discussion style. >It is political in the same way as everything is political. Yep. There it is. Flooding HN with politics to push an agenda.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I've been lurking HN for years. I'm not the one insulting anyone or accusing people of being in bad faith. >>It is political in the same way as everything is political. >Yep. There it is. Flooding HN with politics to push an agenda. No, it isn't. It's a descriptive statement. If you describe politics as "what we do together", which is the only definition that makes a discussion on Google's business practices (which is totally in the spirit of the website), then essentially everything is politics because of the effect discussing the world has on what should be done.

MKinley 6y ago

Google's "business" model has been in question for years now, I now am extra glad that I already downloaded all my data from Google, acquired my own domain and set up a nextcloud server. If I need more space, I buy another/larger hard drive, and never need to worry about data collection, services shutting down or prices changing.

masterofmisc 6y ago
But what do you do for off-site back though? Do you have a strategy for the 'house burning down' scenario?
- MKinley 6y ago
  Yes I do, offline and offsite backup of important and valuable data stored on a HDD at my parents. Not the most seemless or user friendly options, but the privacy and security of my data is more important. I have also considered looking into mirroring my data on a trusted hosting provider for some day when I can afford to pay.
  - masterofmisc 6y ago
    Yeah, that's a good strategy I suppose even if you do need to cart around a HDD to update every so often. You just need to make sure your parents backup is updated periodically.
    - MKinley 6y ago
      The carting around and updating is made simpler with a tool I have found and love, free file sync. One of the few tools I buy into (even though its free).
      - masterofmisc 6y ago
        Checking it out now.
- 6y ago

majani 6y ago

No one ever hikes the prices up significantly after running at a big loss. What usually ends up happening is that loss making companies adopt a model where their shareholders are the actual customers that the business makes money from. The goal becomes to IPO and leave index funds and pension funds holding the bag and playing hot potato with it. In a perverse way it's kind of sustainable. Hate not the player, but the game.