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The cynic in me says this is all part of the plan. Sure, we'll give you seemingly impossibly large amounts of cloud storage for free, learn to never delete anyt

The cynic in me says this is all part of the plan. Sure, we'll give you seemingly impossibly large amounts of cloud storage for free, learn to never delete anything that you ever talk about in your entire life. Ten years down the road, "oh, looks like you need to start paying us monthly for more cloud storage!" I kinda wonder how many Gmail users now pay Google for more storage space just to cover their email archive... And how many will in another ten years.

derefr 5y ago
> I kinda wonder how many Gmail users now pay Google for more storage space just to cover their email archive... Gmail’s storage space has consistently grown over the years to keep up with the average user’s demand. Google don’t want to do anything — like charging for email storage — that would disincentivize their mass of sensors^H users from feeding them ever more data. (If you’re an outlier with way more storage than usual, they’ll happily charge you, knowing that the data point you represent is mostly going to get pruned out of their models anyway.)
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  This was previously true. Free storage at Google hasn't increased from 15 GB since 2013. (I have a few promotional bonuses that bring me up to about 19 GB, but it's been that way for... over half a decade without increase.) Personally, my Google storage is mostly full, even though I haven't used Google Drive or Gmail since 2016, and have removed much of my personal content since then. Also, now they're actually effectively decreasing everyone's storage. Previously, Google Drive document types and Google Photos didn't count towards that 15 GB limit. They will as of June 1st, 2021: https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/ https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/ So, while cloud storage usage has exploded over the past eight years, Google's storage limits have not only not expanded to meet it, they've actually begun to tighten the belt.
laurent92 5y ago
They don’t need that, they can just start saving pics in HEIC at 4MB per pic, and backups start exploding. I use Gimp and generally obtain the same quality with a 450KB JPEG, sometimes 50KB depending on the contents. Images can be remarkably small. They should try increasing the compression ratio until a change is noticeable, but do they care?
- ska 5y ago
  > They should try increasing the compression ratio until a change is noticeable, but do they care? That fine for final/production images but it's a terrible idea for your originals, or really anything you might want to edit beyond cropping).

derefr 5y ago

> I kinda wonder how many Gmail users now pay Google for more storage space just to cover their email archive... Gmail’s storage space has consistently grown over the years to keep up with the average user’s demand. Google don’t want to do anything — like charging for email storage — that would disincentivize their mass of sensors^H users from feeding them ever more data. (If you’re an outlier with way more storage than usual, they’ll happily charge you, knowing that the data point you represent is mostly going to get pruned out of their models anyway.)

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
This was previously true. Free storage at Google hasn't increased from 15 GB since 2013. (I have a few promotional bonuses that bring me up to about 19 GB, but it's been that way for... over half a decade without increase.) Personally, my Google storage is mostly full, even though I haven't used Google Drive or Gmail since 2016, and have removed much of my personal content since then. Also, now they're actually effectively decreasing everyone's storage. Previously, Google Drive document types and Google Photos didn't count towards that 15 GB limit. They will as of June 1st, 2021: https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/ https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/ So, while cloud storage usage has exploded over the past eight years, Google's storage limits have not only not expanded to meet it, they've actually begun to tighten the belt.

laurent92 5y ago

They don’t need that, they can just start saving pics in HEIC at 4MB per pic, and backups start exploding. I use Gimp and generally obtain the same quality with a 450KB JPEG, sometimes 50KB depending on the contents. Images can be remarkably small. They should try increasing the compression ratio until a change is noticeable, but do they care?

ska 5y ago
> They should try increasing the compression ratio until a change is noticeable, but do they care? That fine for final/production images but it's a terrible idea for your originals, or really anything you might want to edit beyond cropping).