[raycpl]

It's not much of a problem with Telegram cos its cloud base. Log in anywhere and the history will appear. Not sure what's the deal with WhatsApp. All the stuff is saved locally

[Burnnerman]

I didn't realize the difference between alive and dead is $2/month. Life is fragile.

Especially when you think that it is less than 1 cup of coffee.

[920Walker]

Especially when you think that it is less than 1 cup of coffee.

It's less than continuing a lost level of Sugar Crash Tonic Pops using IAPs.

[rhapdog]

MS won't gnash their teeth over losing a customer who uses OneDrive for music storage but doesn't want to pay for either OneDrive or Groove.

Exactly. Which is why they are no longer producing all the super-low-end Lumias. Introducing the 950 and 950XL is a start to attract a clientele that doesn't mind paying for things. Will it anger people who want free stuff? Absolutely. But their investors will be happy with higher returns on their stock.

Also, if google (Microsoft's competitor in not only cloud storage but also phone OS) offers 15gb free and MS offers only 5gb it takes value away from Windows phone.

Using that analogy, iPhone has no value. They only offer 5GB free as well. Try to tell that to an iPhone user and they will laugh you out of the building.

I'm not a freeloader but I'm also not a sucker and if I can get a better price I will. If I need more storage I will pay for it but I won't pay for 15gb when the competitor gives that much away for free. I think at minimum Microsoft should reward those who bought into their phone ecosystem with a reasonable amount of space to store there photos and music included. Just my 2 cents.

I'm one of the cheapest people alive, as far as "I won't pay for it if I can get it free or find a better deal somewhere else." However, I also have to balance quality and value with the price. Each person will have to judge if the quality/value/price meets his/her criteria.

For example, I can buy 6 different brands of bread flour at the local store. However, 4 of the brands produce unpredictable results because of the way they process it. The amount of gluten in those brands aren't stable, which means you won't get consistent results when baking. If I'm having to throw out 1 in 3 loaves of bread because of this, then 20% cheaper means nothing to me. The best value is the one that is consistent. (True story on the bread flour. Yes, I went to culinary school, among other things.)

Google does indeed offer 15GB free, and they offer unlimited photo storage. However, that unlimited photo storage is a type of storage where they compress your photos that you store online, causing the image quality to be reduced in a way that is unacceptable to me. They also get permission to use your photos through their Terms of Service. As someone who gets paid for some of the pictures he takes, that takes away a LOT of value for me. I don't take pictures for social media, so I need the highest quality photos that my device can produce.

However, Google Drive is a service that is quite acceptable for many. It just doesn't suit my needs, as I need more than 15GB, and I don't want my photos compressed.

MEGA is a fairly good option, but the founder left the company stating that the files stored there are no longer secure. I don't know the full details about all that, but it seems to be a concern. It's fairly new, and MEGA's predecessor was shut down by law enforcement. I'm just not sure if I want to trust them with my data.

had O-365 and found it to be a terrible problem - constant lag, constant crash. I quit, bought full Office (for $399), and am much happier. Now I wish people who bought real Office could also get 1TB, but we can't, so I'm willing to pay. But now I don't even have that option. Real stupid way to treat a loyal customer, MS.

There is zero difference between Office 365 and the full Office, as you say. Office 365 is the full office, with the exception that you get to continue to update to the newest version of the full Office every time a new one is released, like from 2010 to 2013 to 2016, etc.

If you were having those issues, and they went away when you bought the "full Office", then you had a bad download and install somehow. There is zero difference other than being able to keep up to date and not having to pay full price up front.

Especially when you think that it is less than 1 cup of coffee.

Not for me, really. I make my own coffee, and it costs me less than 3 cents per cup. Those coffee shops make a killing, don't they? It would take approximately 67 cups of coffee to pay for the 50GB per month, which for me is nearly 2 weeks worth of coffee. It's still cheap, though.

Since I am a user that needs Office anyway, I've got the Office 365, and plan to continue to pay for that. I have an additional 2 TB of storage on a web server that I lease for private use and unlimited bandwith on that private server. I pay much more for the private server than I do for Office 365, and the domains that I pay for upkeep on yearly have a combined price also higher than the Office 365 account.

[blue1k]

Glad my work pays for my Onedrive account. 😏

[D4X]

on WP check out BitTorrent Sync setup your home PC and make your own fluffy clouds

[phxchristian]

It won't downgrade until 2016. And if you have Office 365, it will just decrease from unlimited to 1TB, not a big deal that everyone is making it out to be. I have Groove music and they also gave me 100GB free. I also have loyalty bonuses and a Bing rewards bonus as well. I don't think those expire until 2017 at least that's what it says on my OneDrive.

[OG Richie C]

There is zero difference between Office 365 and the full Office, as you say. Office 365 is the full office, with the exception that you get to continue to update to the newest version of the full Office every time a new one is released, like from 2010 to 2013 to 2016, etc.

If you were having those issues, and they went away when you bought the "full Office", then you had a bad download and install somehow. There is zero difference other than being able to keep up to date.

Maybe there's a difference between Office Pro and 365 (I use Access and Outlook daily). When opening OneDrive files with O-365 installed, it kept trying to default to the light web-based versions of Excel and Word rather than opening the full programs.

Furthermore I can get Office 2016 Pro for $9 through my govt job, so there's no incentive to pay that monthly for the lesser version.

Which brings me back to my original grievance: I pay monthly for 200GB OneDrive (I'm not asking for anything free, and I need personal OneDrive separate from my business, SharePoint-based OneDrive Pro account). This storage need will continue to grow over time, and I'm willing to pay more.

I don't get how MS is in the cloud storage business without cloud storage options for paying customers. Seems bizarre, since the alternative will be to push me into paying their competition.

[rhapdog]

Maybe there's a difference between Office Pro and 365 (I use Access and Outlook daily). When opening OneDrive files with O-365 installed, it kept trying to default to the light web-based versions of Excel and Word rather than opening the full programs.

My wife has Microsoft Office 2013 Professional. I have Office 365, which I recently upgraded to 2016 for no additional charge. Opening Office files acts exactly the same. It is possible that you did not install Excel and Word when you installed Office 365, as you can select which programs to install locally.

When I select Excel or Word files from my local Hard Drive, even if they are in my OneDrive folder, they open locally. If I am browsing with the OneDrive web site, it will open the files using the Online version. I have to choose to download the file. This is with either my Office 365 or my wife's installed Office 2013 Pro.

Having used Office 365 before the 2013 upgrade, I can tell you it is the same as the Office 2013 Professional edition in every way. It doesn't try to be online any more or less than the purchased version.

Furthermore I can get Office 2016 Pro for $9 through my govt job, so there's no incentive to pay that monthly for the lesser version.

If I had that benefit from a government job, I would certainly take advantage of it. Kudos.

Which brings me back to my original grievance: I pay monthly for 200GB OneDrive (I'm not asking for anything free, and I need personal OneDrive separate from my business, SharePoint-based OneDrive Pro account). This storage need will continue to grow over time, and I'm willing to pay more.

I don't get how MS is in the cloud storage business without cloud storage options for paying customers. Seems bizarre, since the alternative will be to push me into paying their competition.

MS is in the cloud business, but cloud storage for consumers, to them, is a negligible part of it, which they have proved by being nearly negligent of it. To them the cloud is BI, Azure services, Office apps in the cloud, etc. OneDrive, I believe in their eyes, is a "necessary evil" that they need to provide as a courtesy to their cloud customers as a way of making it easier to tie their cloud services together.

Their idea isn't to push you into paying the competition, but, rather, push you into Office 365. Well, I say that is THEIR idea. I didn't say it was a good idea.

Still, at the 1TB level, I haven't found better storage than OneDrive. The difference is, I don't really need much in the way of OneDrive. I can survive just fine on less than 5GB. However, I've got the 1TB. If I could get the full Office Pro for $9, I'd probably jump on it since I don't need the cloud storage.

[OG Richie C]

I believe in their eyes, is a "necessary evil" that they need to provide as a courtesy to their cloud customers as a way of making it easier to tie their cloud services together.

Their idea isn't to push you into paying the competition, but, rather, push you into Office 365. Well, I say that is THEIR idea. I didn't say it was a good idea.

Ah. That makes sense.

Not sure why they went through the effort of opening a retail chain of their intent is to balk at everyday consumers. Although perhaps Nadalla never would've made that decision.

With O-365, I had a full copy of Office Pro installed, then subscribed to 365 trial for the OneDrive increase. Maybe I'll try uninstalling my full version first and then installing 365. I still would prefer to subscribe just to 1TB of OneDrive, even if it cost me the same. Silly Microsoft.

[Ten Four]

Most consumers don't want or need Office 365, plus they have a perfectly good older PC or laptop running Windows 7 or 8 that they see no need to upgrade to W10. The continuous upgrades required by Windows are brutal for average consumers. I see it constantly--computer hasn't been used for two weeks because they do everything on their smartphones and before they can use something on the PC they have to endure 20 minutes of updates. They don't want to deal with all that, they only need lightweight programs and a browser, and they want it all cheap and simple. This OneDrive degrade is just another reason to go to Google and its ecosystem. I see this as MS essentially writing off the consumer market, except for the % that are power users.

[Bryan Trach]

You do know that O365 and "full office" are pretty much the same thing? Or were you only using the web apps? I use Office 365(2016 version) 8+ hours every day and haven't run into the issues you speak of.

[Ten Four]

I use O365 every day at work, but we are running Windows 7 still. The online versions are OK, but desktop versions work much better. Still, the updates are brutal. A few weeks ago I gave up timing it after 20 minutes and went and did something else. It essentially meant I missed lunch because I couldn't leave the PC behind since I was going somewhere else to work. When my wife fires up her PC after having not used it for a month or more the update process often prohibits work for an hour or more. On an older PC it often just locks up and you have to go through several reboots to get it to work.

[Wbutchart1]

I personally am not effected by the changes to OneDrive. I also can't grasp the dramatic reactions of others (kudos to the op for brilliantly demonstrating this). There is still a good amount of storage for $2 and lets face it, if paying why would someone pay more when office home is not far off the price.

Unlimited storage is a nonsense concept that can't possibly be fulfilled. Glad that's gone as it showed OneDrive to be an immature product much like those low cost web hosts that offer the world for virtually nothing, there's always a catch. So that being gone is good for all, and for those effected by the loss of unlimited I'm glad they are changing services as they only damage the quality of ours.