on the photo platform Google Photos Unlimited storage will be reintroduced – at least to a select group of users. This should be a beta test that, if successful, can be rolled out to all users around the world thus bringing back the killer feature at the time. But the show is not only better and worse than it was at the time, but it’s also a bit problematic.
From the start, Google Photos has had unlimited free storage space for all users. The only limitation was that the rendering was for “high quality” photos and videos and not the original quality. But Google’s threshold values were chosen so generously that it didn’t make a difference for the vast majority of users and formats. However, this past year ended with a long period of time, and today users are charged for every byte uploaded.
Nothing is known about the effect of stopping unlimited free storage. Presumably, usage among the informed user pool has decreased. However, a large percentage of users may not have noticed anything at all, and at some point they run the risk of the quota filling up and therefore emails can no longer be sent or received. Depending on the scale of the business, this may already have happened to some.
Stopping the show at the time was understandable, but it’s still pretty ugly and may poison the platform’s long-term future. Because Google Photos lives from the fact that users can find all the photos there and not just the specific categories or albums that are particularly worth sharing. Therefore, a solution acceptable to both sides must be found.
The new solution is Google One share with unlimited storage, which we have already provided to you in detail. However, this has so far only been offered to select T-Mobile customers in the USA, which the company advertises as an exclusive promotion. However, since this is a subscription and this exclusivity is usually limited in time, it can be assumed that it is a test run. This may or may not be successful. I believe that you will gain experience and would like to offer this or similar product to all users in the future.
More money for more performance
However, the crux of the matter is that as of today, users of this product are required to pay $15 per month. In return, you get a Google One bundle with 2TB of storage for all products, plus the well-known perks you usually get for $10 a month. The $5 above is for unlimited storage on Google Photos, otherwise there will be no changes to the smaller package.
If you were already a power user of Google Photos before, you probably already have the $10 package and pay another $5 for the additional service. But this is also represented by the fact that you get unlimited storage for all media of unlimited size. So it’s no longer just “high quality” as it used to be, but the original quality. So if you want to upload your own terapixel image or 8K @ 120 FPS video out there (as far as Google Photos supports), you can do so in bulk and carefree.
For power users, this is a very strong suggestion. $15 isn’t cheap, but a real endless pit with unlimited storage doesn’t weigh in a dollar either. Of course, Google hopes that there will only be a few crazy (not passively mean!) people shoveling endless streams of data into the cloud and that the show will eventually pay off. But then I see the problem with the concept of this new package.
The average user reaches very far with its 2TB capacity and enjoys it for many years. Only professional users are scratching the limits quickly and need more. But these are exactly the users who accept the offer and load the Google servers. I consider careful use out of the question, and in the long run Google will again have the problem that even with the monthly fee it can’t be funded in the long run. There is no limit, because someone has to save and pay for storage.
What is the remaining 2 TB?
Quite apart from the target group question: If you switch from a 2TB package to a 2TB + Google Photos package, you’ll suddenly get a lot of free storage. The 2TB space you had before should be primarily occupied by Google Photos media for the vast majority of users. Of course, you can also fill it with Google Drive, but this rarely happens. And you don’t really need that for GMail.
Do you have a Google Photos subscription?
I wrote here on the blog years ago that the Shared Storage Manager for Photos-Drive-GMail should be replaced and will continue to do so. A separate subscription to Google Photos will come in handy. Why not charge €5 per month for unlimited high-quality storage and €10 per month for unlimited storage? I think something like this would be very popular and the turbochargers would be supported by the mass of other users. Many would like to get the unlimited storage back and would be willing to pay for it. But not 15 dollars / euros per month.
We can’t wait to see what’s to come. The current beta run shows that Google is aware of the topic and is not fundamentally opposed to it.
» Google Photos: New gallery tab pulled – view needs to be reviewed again
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