Microsoft and their anti-consumer practices

[mrpuny]

The unlimited photo backup resolution for Google Drive is set at 16 megapixels. Only anything above 16 megapixels will count towards your normal quota. 16 megapixels is ample for most smartphone users.

Do you have a source for the 16 megapixel allowable? Because according to this Google support page, unlimited photo storage only applies to photos with a resolution of 2048 pixels on the longest edge, which would mean a 4 megapixel limit (2048 X 2048).

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6093613?hl=en

 

[Ten Four]

My guess is that the whole thing smells of an incredibly ham-fisted way of trying to force more people to subscribe to Office 365. It was obviously created and pushed by bean counters who have no direct contact with the public and live in their own cloistered world of spreadsheets running on multi-monitored desktop computers. In short, completely out of touch with the real world where someone goes into an AT&T store in the mall and wants a new phone. They look at phone A and it comes with 15GB of free storage, unlimited photo storage, and tons of music storage, plus it runs all the apps you would ever want. Phone W on the other hand only comes with 5GB of free storage, no extra photo or music storage, and all the cool apps are non-existent or not as good. They could care less about Office 365, which is basically useless on their phones anyway, is total overkill for 99% of people, and carries a subscription fee. It's really a no brainer for most people. Remember "mobile first, cloud first." This OneDrive fiasco destroys that strategy.

 

[Krystianpants]

Of course cheap people is going to whine, but those aren't who pays the bills.
Microsoft needs to make money and they have to improve the service. Freeloaders are a big burden. Things are going to improve with these changes.

Free loaders? MS offered it and people took the offer. In fact, it gave such a good offer it made people move over from other services. So now you have all these people moved over and you press the red button and try to get them to get an office subscription. You buy a phone it's part of what you are getting. I don't think me buying a 500$ phone was free loading. I have purchased many apps too. And again I only used a few hundred megs but it still irks me that they did this as it does not tie in with getting more mobile customers.

Guess they should change the lumia 950xl store page as it still says:

[5] Get 15GB OneDrive storage when you sign-up with a new Microsoft account; get an additional 15GB free the first time you activate camera upload from your Lumia phone using the same Microsoft account. Limit: one 15GB OneDrive sign-up redemption and one 15GB camera upload redemption per Microsoft account. Internet and mobile fees apply.

 

[Krystianpants]

Do you have a source for the 16 megapixel allowable? Because according to this Google support page, unlimited photo storage only applies to photos with a resolution of 2048 pixels on the longest edge, which would mean a 4 megapixel limit (2048 X 2048).

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6093613?hl=en

I thought i read somewhere that the nexus brand gets full resolution but I may be wrong.

 

[Spectrum90]

Free loaders? MS offered it and people took the offer. In fact, it gave such a good offer it made people move over from other services. So now you have all these people moved over and you press the red button and try to get them to get an office subscription. You buy a phone it's part of what you are getting. I don't think me buying a 500$ phone was free loading. I have purchased many apps too. And again I only used a few hundred megs but it still irks me that they did this as it does not tie in with getting more mobile customers.

Guess they should change the lumia 950xl store page as it still says:

The offer was too good, probably unsustainable. Market conditions change and companies adjust their prices all the time. This whole thing is like a Netflix price increase, everybody is whining.

Users can enjoy their current free storage space for one more year, after that they have to evaluate other options.

Microsoft is still offering the best paid plan. It's amazingly low-priced compared to the other services.

 

[tgp]

Do you have a source for the 16 megapixel allowable? Because according to this Google support page, unlimited photo storage only applies to photos with a resolution of 2048 pixels on the longest edge, which would mean a 4 megapixel limit (2048 X 2048).

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6093613?hl=en

It does seem a bit ambiguous. Here is a document that specifically mentions 16MP as falling under the unlimited free photo storage: Google Photos Help. Expand the FAQ titled "Can I print photos that I back up at High quality?"

 

[xaeryan]

I see a lot of people defending MS here, which is a bit surprising.

While I certainly don't think this is an "anti-consumer" practice, it does feel like they don't care about some of their loyals - in particular, their mobile users. Part of the allure of Windows Phone for me was to have 25 GB to backup my photos (of which I take a lot). Is it wrong for someone to feel upset that this is taken away from them?

In addition, to say that this is due to some abusers of the unlimited plan but then alter the non-unlimited plan feels underhanded. If the offenders are to the unlimited plan, then amend/drop the unlimited plan.

 

[mrpuny]

It does seem a bit ambiguous. Here is a document that specifically mentions 16MP as falling under the unlimited free photo storage: Google Photos Help. Expand the FAQ titled "Can I print photos that I back up at High quality?"

Thanks, this definitely contradicts the link I found. (But the link in my post was what came up when I searched for 'photos' in the Google Drive help. Not the first time a company has contradictory information posted.)

However, reading your link, I don't think their free storage will do what I want. The free storage only applies to photos backed up at "high quality" settings, which appears to use a lossy compression algorithm. "Most" photos will "essentially" look the same according to the FAQ. (Sounds analogous to having lossless audio tracks converted to MP3 format when moved to the cloud.) If you want to archive original quality photos, regardless of resolution, it looks like it counts against the Google Drive storage.

 

[phelme]

I've read a couple of accounts about people who've looked at the size of their photo image file before it went up to Google Drive and then when they've downloaded it to their PC, has shrunk. Not sure what the resolution was of these images before they went up was however.

 

[GSOgymrat]

It hits mobile hard. Even users who don't ever use the space May see the numbers google offers and now compare to ms and buy android with 15 gigs storage, unlimited camera uploads + 5000 songs. when users buy phones they look over the whole package. Onedrive should offer more as an incentive to buy windows phone but now it really doesn't offer anything. People like bigger numbers whether they use them or not. So MS is really screwing the phone users and the platform from gaining more market share with stunts like these.

I agree. Cutting free photo storage for Windows Mobile users doesn't make sense on a struggling OS. Microsoft seems focused on promoting Microsoft 365 at the unnecessary expense of Windows Mobile. I understand charging heavy OneDrive users but if Microsoft is truly behind Windows Mobile they should give active users free storage that is beyond what competitors are offering; if Google is giving 15GB free then active Windows Mobile users should get 30GB, without photo size restrictions. Also the story that a small number of users were using huge amounts of storage therefore the average consumers storage must be reduced sounds disingenuous. Microsoft should have just said to remain competitive they are aligning the fee scale of their superior product with the fees of similar providers.

 

[anon(6078578)]

Free loaders? MS offered it and people took the offer. In fact, it gave such a good offer it made people move over from other services. So now you have all these people moved over and you press the red button and try to get them to get an office subscription. You buy a phone it's part of what you are getting. I don't think me buying a 500$ phone was free loading. I have purchased many apps too. And again I only used a few hundred megs but it still irks me that they did this as it does not tie in with getting more mobile customers.

Guess they should change the lumia 950xl store page as it still says:

[5] Get 15GB OneDrive storage when you sign-up with a new Microsoft account; get an additional 15GB free the first time you activate camera upload from your Lumia phone using the same Microsoft account. Limit: one 15GB OneDrive sign-up redemption and one 15GB camera upload redemption per Microsoft account. Internet and mobile fees apply.

This does tend to enhance the idea that Microsoft is only continuing in the Smartphone business half heartedly if they continue to do odd things like this.

I often wonder if Microsoft are secretly hoping their smartphone share will dwindle enough in the next two years to a point where they can retire from mobile phones 'quietly'.

 

[John M Beauchemin]

Here's my .2c. This decision does not affect me as I am an Office365 sub and 1TB is more than enough for anything I use the cloud for. In fact, I primarily use DropBox for temporary file sharing among co-workers and peers, and with them I only have 2GB and it's still more than enough. I also have my own 32TB NAS which I run my own cloud drive off of for backups, so... yeah.

How I perceive their actions: MS should not have offered unlimited cloud storage to begin with, it was foolish. Anybody should have been able to see this coming a mile away. It was probably costing them a fortune. They also should not have dropped the free plan all the way down to 5GB. Speaking as an iPhone/iPad user, the free 5GB iCloud package is juuuuust not enough to be able to use to back up my devices, and that is SUPREMELY annoying. Because it's 5 free GB that are essentially useless as far as I'm concerned.

How they should have done it IMO:

1. They should have dropped the unlimited... I think everyone would have understood that it was a ridiculous notion and forgiven them for dropping it.
2. They should have set up a tier specifically for people who buy Windows phones with enough storage for them to back-up said phones entirely to the cloud... so a 32GB plan, basically. Free, as a thank you for buying their hardware.
3. The 1TB for Office 365 is fantastic, and I wouldn't change that at all. Especially since you generally get free 1-year 365 subs with Win10 devices.
4. Lastly, for the scrubs, 15GB free in order to beat everyone else's free offerings fairly soundly.

 

[jlzimmerman]

Why bother? They are independent company and they can do what ever they want to. Customers choose do they like or not companys products and services. If you don't like choose another product.
Capitalism is a wonderful thing that wipes incompetent companies away over the time.
So simple is that.

They are not an independent company. While mentioning it, if you own a 401K, MF's, or IRA with holdings in the tech sector chances are you own shares of Microsoft. So, if you're going to complain on twitter or email don't forget to add "as a shareholder of the Microsoft Corporation...." You never know. Money talks.

In addition to twitter and the User Voice forums, you can:

• hit Microsoft up on the OneDrive app on your phone and send feedback
• Go to the OneDrive Community and reply to a post about the storage changes, or create your own thread
• Call Microsoft and make a verbal complaint at 866.672.4551
• Get a representative on Chat (click on Services & Apps, then OneDrive option) and make a complaint
• Or send them snail mail at

Microsoft
attn OneDrive Team
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399​

 

[ajj3085]

Very few ordinary people use Office 365 at home unless they got it for free. It's total overkill for what 99% of consumers need or want at home. Why pay when free office suites do everything needed by this 99%?

Because Google Apps sucks, and OpenOffice doesn't have a lot of users, so if you're stuck you probably don't have anyone you know that can help you. Free isn't always better.

 

[ajj3085]

The other problem is that even when you do pay, Microsoft has an annoying habit of overlooking small details that are annoying. One example being no tab functionality in Online Word which even Google Docs has! I thought the idea was to have a fully functioning version of word online, I don't want to have do download software to be able to get full functionality. I understand for advanced features but not for basic stuff.

You'll never get full functionality from browser apps, they are doomed to forever suck. Rich client apps, be they desktop or mobile, have a huge advantage in that the environment they operate in is designed to run applications. A browser with JavaScript was never really meant to be for applications, it was just supposed to be html document rendering, and when you're building a browser app you're always fighting that. It ends up being like java, write once test everywhere. At least with store apps you just have three environments to test.

 

[ajj3085]

The unlimited photo backup resolution for Google Drive is set at 16 megapixels. Only anything above 16 megapixels will count towards your normal quota. 16 megapixels is ample for most smartphone users.

The 950xl has a 20mp camera. 16mp won't be good enough for long. Why wouldn't i want my pictures as high quality as i can? part of the reason i got the 920 was its picture quality.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Because Google Apps sucks, and OpenOffice doesn't have a lot of users, so if you're stuck you probably don't have anyone you know that can help you. Free isn't always better.

Google Apps or LibreOffice might be good enough for a home user. How often does anyone use Office outside of work or school?

 

[Allen Rhodes]

$2/month is practically nothing. Should they have kept the camera roll bonus? Probably.

Or kept the cam roll bonus for MS phones...

 

[ajj3085]

Google Apps or LibreOffice might be good enough for a home user. How often does anyone use Office outside of work or school?

LibreOffice would have the same issue as OpenOffice. Google apps works until you hit backspace while not in a textbox and the browser navigates away, losing your changes.

I use Word when I need to type letters, admittedly rare, or to work on my resume. Excel I use more commonly for simple financial calculations. Outlook I use daily, but I'm not a standard user as I have an Exchange server, but I always prefer an application for email over webmail even if I didn't have one. At any rate Office personal subscription is less per month than Netflix, and that also gets you 1TB OneDrive, not a bad deal, even if its not free.

 

[Laura Knotek]

LibreOffice would have the same issue as OpenOffice. Google apps works until you hit backspace while not in a textbox and the browser navigates away, losing your changes.

I use Word when I need to type letters, admittedly rare, or to work on my resume. Excel I use more commonly for simple financial calculations. Outlook I use daily, but I'm not a standard user as I have an Exchange server, but I always prefer an application for email over webmail even if I didn't have one. At any rate Office personal subscription is less per month than Netflix, and that also gets you 1TB OneDrive, not a bad deal, even if its not free.

I'd guess that most people who don't have Exchange servers would use Office (Microsoft or something else) far less than you. The only reason I subscribe to Office 365 is for OneDrive. For the rare times I use any other Office programs, Google Apps or LibreOffice would suffice. I do use LibreOffice on my Linux boxes.