This is my fault for saying something vaguely nice about Stadia yesterday, wasn't it? Fucking Google.
If you're not sure why I'm annoyed, check out this patronising PR-speak-filled thread from Google Photos' product lead: https://twitter.com/dflieb/status/1326586058289471491
Essentially, from June next year, Google Photos will no longer allow its users to back up their photos and videos on an unlimited basis for free; you'll be limited to 15GB of storage, or whatever you choose to upgrade your Google One storage account to. For the unfamiliar, at present if you allow Google Photos to upload "high quality (compressed)" versions of your images and videos, they don't count against any of your existing storage limit, making it a fantastic means of backing media up with only a tiny loss in quality.
This setup has been ideal for me as I've been working on various projects; I can take screenshots and videos without worrying about taking up too much space, because I know I can just back them up online and then pull them back down again if it turns out I need them. With this change, I'll have a hard cap on this — even if I pay up for the additional storage (which I actually already am — it's not much per month for 100GB, but that won't last long when videos are involved).
I understand that this would have probably happened sooner or later; the old adage about things being too good to be true is, unfortunately, one of the things that is always true. This is a real bummer, though; it's one of many instances where Google appears to be deliberately making one of their offerings significantly worse rather than better.
It does make me wonder about the future of other services, though. How long before we have a hard limit on how much you can upload to YouTube, for example…?
Discover more from I'm Not Doctor Who
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
