4 ms·

If you have to start paying for photo storage, you may as well move them somewhere with better privacy.

JorgeGT 6y ago
I'm giving Amazon Photos a try, since they offer unlimited high quality storage with Prime. I will appreciate if someone shares their opinion about this service.
- oefrha 6y ago
  “Unlimited”, until it is limited. Amazon already bait-and-switched on unlimited Amazon Cloud Drive storage. Microsoft, too, on OneDrive, before Amazon. Now Google. What makes you believe Amazon will honor “unlimited” this time round?
  - JorgeGT 6y ago
    Oh, nothing. But until they do, why pay Google, if I already pay Prime?
  - avisser 6y ago
    > What makes you believe Amazon will honor “unlimited” this time round? Because Amazon has an incentive to keep me as a Prime customer (I'll buy more crap on Amazon). Most people don't pay Google a single cent. So it's not that I trust Amazon, it's that the economic model for Amazon including unlimited storage in my Prime membership makes sense. (Note: I wouldn't bet on Amazon staying unlimited for the next 50 years, just providing the counter-argument.)
    - oefrha 6y ago
      They had an incentive to keep me as an Amazon Cloud Drive customer, too, until they decided they didn’t if I stored more than 1TB. So I canceled. In the case of Prime I doubt a non-negligible percentage of Prime customers would cancel over losing unlimited storage, so the incentive to keep it unlimited is even smaller.
    - mrep 6y ago
      I wouldn't count on it considering they unbundled ad free twitch from prime 2 years ago [0]. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/20/17761760/twitch-prime-turbo-ad-free-benefit-end-over-september-14 https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/20/17761760/twitch-prime-tur...
- loughnane 6y ago
  Have used it but this sounds a lot like kicking the can down the road. Don’t be surprised if/when Amazon does the same thing and/or just lets photos Languish. I encourage a self-hosted solution with backups. There are many, some super easy for non-tech folk to use (synology for example)
  - JorgeGT 6y ago
    I am indeed self-hosting, but just a Raspberry Pi+HD. The Google/Amazon Photos is the backup/convenience. Since I want off-site backups in case something happens in my apartment, when/if Amazon goes this road I'll probably rent some general purpose storage in the cloud.
    - loughnane 6y ago
      Check out backblaze. Crazy cheap for backups (0.005/GB/month or so IIRC) and you can easily encrypt before doing so to maintain privacy.
- GordonS 6y ago
  Oh, I have Amazon Prime and didn't know Amazon Photos existed! Is it a PITA to switch from Google Photos, or is it just a case of installing an Amazon Photos app and enabling sync?
- Kihashi 6y ago
  I've been using it for a few weeks already. tldr: It's slightly worse than Google photos in most respects and quite a bit worse for albums. * The AI is fine, although not as good as Google's. * Albums are far less featureful. The shared link doesn't even show the album title. You can't add text or locations like you can on Gphotos. This makes trip albums less good IMO. * Scrolling and UI seem faster, although I have far fewer photos. * Desktop upload is nice for people who have non-smartphone cameras * Albums list can be sorted by Date Created or Name. GPhotos default sort is by the date of the most recent photo. * Adding and removing from albums seems slower, but is also async, so /shrug * Selecting multiple photos is much harder- Google allows a Press, hold, swipe gesture to select multiple photos. Amzn doesn't have that on the app. On web, they do have shift+Click, though. * Different photo layouts is nice * The shared photo screen is very aggressively in your face about advertising amazon photos. GPhotos has no ads. * AFAICT, Amzn does not share the accounts/names of signed-in people who access shared content. Gphotos leaks this info to anyone who views the shared content. It's one of my main problems with GPhotos. I have not really tested the "Groups" feature (which seems to be the equivalent of shared albums).
- jeanofthedead 6y ago
  It's a lot nicer importing and exporting photos with Amazon Prime Photos. Google Takeout is a nightmare to use.
m0zg 6y ago
That's what Google is organizationally unable to understand. They consider you giving them all your data to be a perfectly private thing to do. In fact, in a way, they consider themselves to be sort of guardians of your privacy, since they only look at it themselves and don't let anybody else take advantage of it. To anyone outside Google this not what "privacy" means, of course, but that's the internal mantra. I don't think they thought this through actually. If I have to pay, I'll pay for Apple iCloud instead, since it has better integration with my devices.
- the_af 6y ago
  > If I have to pay, I'll pay for Apple iCloud instead, since it has better integration with my devices. If you ever, for whatever reason, stop using Apple devices, can you continue using your iCloud storage from other devices? If not, that'd be a deal breaker for me.
  - jeanofthedead 6y ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283
morsch 6y ago
I suppose. The usability of Google Photos is pretty awesome, though, I'd find it very difficult to switch. Both the Android app and the web app are maintained and work extremely well (imho, ymmv). Does video, too. Tight integration with Android devices and other Google products, fairly convenient sharing functionality, and almost everybody has a Google account. (This is what Microsoft devotees must have felt like in the early 00s...) And at this point I'm easily served by the lowest tier, 20 EUR for 100 GB.
Faaak 6y ago
I use infomaniak's kdrive, which, I think, has a reasonable price: 64CHF (=~USD) per year for 2Tb.

I'm giving Amazon Photos a try, since they offer unlimited high quality storage with Prime. I will appreciate if someone shares their opinion about this service.

oefrha 6y ago
“Unlimited”, until it is limited. Amazon already bait-and-switched on unlimited Amazon Cloud Drive storage. Microsoft, too, on OneDrive, before Amazon. Now Google. What makes you believe Amazon will honor “unlimited” this time round?
- JorgeGT 6y ago
  Oh, nothing. But until they do, why pay Google, if I already pay Prime?
- avisser 6y ago
  > What makes you believe Amazon will honor “unlimited” this time round? Because Amazon has an incentive to keep me as a Prime customer (I'll buy more crap on Amazon). Most people don't pay Google a single cent. So it's not that I trust Amazon, it's that the economic model for Amazon including unlimited storage in my Prime membership makes sense. (Note: I wouldn't bet on Amazon staying unlimited for the next 50 years, just providing the counter-argument.)
  - oefrha 6y ago
    They had an incentive to keep me as an Amazon Cloud Drive customer, too, until they decided they didn’t if I stored more than 1TB. So I canceled. In the case of Prime I doubt a non-negligible percentage of Prime customers would cancel over losing unlimited storage, so the incentive to keep it unlimited is even smaller.
  - mrep 6y ago
    I wouldn't count on it considering they unbundled ad free twitch from prime 2 years ago [0]. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/20/17761760/twitch-prime-turbo-ad-free-benefit-end-over-september-14 https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/20/17761760/twitch-prime-tur...
loughnane 6y ago
Have used it but this sounds a lot like kicking the can down the road. Don’t be surprised if/when Amazon does the same thing and/or just lets photos Languish. I encourage a self-hosted solution with backups. There are many, some super easy for non-tech folk to use (synology for example)
- JorgeGT 6y ago
  I am indeed self-hosting, but just a Raspberry Pi+HD. The Google/Amazon Photos is the backup/convenience. Since I want off-site backups in case something happens in my apartment, when/if Amazon goes this road I'll probably rent some general purpose storage in the cloud.
  - loughnane 6y ago
    Check out backblaze. Crazy cheap for backups (0.005/GB/month or so IIRC) and you can easily encrypt before doing so to maintain privacy.
GordonS 6y ago
Oh, I have Amazon Prime and didn't know Amazon Photos existed! Is it a PITA to switch from Google Photos, or is it just a case of installing an Amazon Photos app and enabling sync?
Kihashi 6y ago
I've been using it for a few weeks already. tldr: It's slightly worse than Google photos in most respects and quite a bit worse for albums. * The AI is fine, although not as good as Google's. * Albums are far less featureful. The shared link doesn't even show the album title. You can't add text or locations like you can on Gphotos. This makes trip albums less good IMO. * Scrolling and UI seem faster, although I have far fewer photos. * Desktop upload is nice for people who have non-smartphone cameras * Albums list can be sorted by Date Created or Name. GPhotos default sort is by the date of the most recent photo. * Adding and removing from albums seems slower, but is also async, so /shrug * Selecting multiple photos is much harder- Google allows a Press, hold, swipe gesture to select multiple photos. Amzn doesn't have that on the app. On web, they do have shift+Click, though. * Different photo layouts is nice * The shared photo screen is very aggressively in your face about advertising amazon photos. GPhotos has no ads. * AFAICT, Amzn does not share the accounts/names of signed-in people who access shared content. Gphotos leaks this info to anyone who views the shared content. It's one of my main problems with GPhotos. I have not really tested the "Groups" feature (which seems to be the equivalent of shared albums).
jeanofthedead 6y ago
It's a lot nicer importing and exporting photos with Amazon Prime Photos. Google Takeout is a nightmare to use.

m0zg 6y ago

That's what Google is organizationally unable to understand. They consider you giving them all your data to be a perfectly private thing to do. In fact, in a way, they consider themselves to be sort of guardians of your privacy, since they only look at it themselves and don't let anybody else take advantage of it. To anyone outside Google this not what "privacy" means, of course, but that's the internal mantra. I don't think they thought this through actually. If I have to pay, I'll pay for Apple iCloud instead, since it has better integration with my devices.

the_af 6y ago
> If I have to pay, I'll pay for Apple iCloud instead, since it has better integration with my devices. If you ever, for whatever reason, stop using Apple devices, can you continue using your iCloud storage from other devices? If not, that'd be a deal breaker for me.
- jeanofthedead 6y ago
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283

morsch 6y ago

I suppose. The usability of Google Photos is pretty awesome, though, I'd find it very difficult to switch. Both the Android app and the web app are maintained and work extremely well (imho, ymmv). Does video, too. Tight integration with Android devices and other Google products, fairly convenient sharing functionality, and almost everybody has a Google account. (This is what Microsoft devotees must have felt like in the early 00s...) And at this point I'm easily served by the lowest tier, 20 EUR for 100 GB.

Faaak 6y ago

I use infomaniak's kdrive, which, I think, has a reasonable price: 64CHF (=~USD) per year for 2Tb.