Onedrive storage down to 5GB from 15 + 15GB

[BobLobIaw]

The Microsoft account integration into WP, including OneDrive, is central to the WP experience, just like it is on iPhone and Android. If you handicap a major functionality of those accounts, you're handicapping the platform.

I agree that integration is central, but how is a major functionality handicapped by these changes? I have an iPhone as well as a WP, and I don't feel handicapped by having only 5GB of free iCloud storage. The only difference I see between the two is the fact that MS seems to be incentivizing people to go with 1TB and Apple is incentivizing people to go with 50GB. Neither is handicapped IMO.

 

[a5cent]

On the other hand, I'm not sure how reasonable it is to view online storage as something that is integral to a device purchase. I know that's a popular view, and I don't blame anyone for taking that stance, but I think we've fooled ourselves. If that was actually how things worked, then that online storage would have to be tied to and wander along with the device, so if you sold it, that storage would be sold along with it. That's clearly not how it works though.

I have to disagree with this. True, the OneDrive storage follows your account, not the physical device. However, those devices are intended to be used with Microsoft accounts. Sure you *can* use WP/Android/iPhone without tying it to an account, but you're clearly missing out if you do so.

The Microsoft account integration into WP, including OneDrive, is central to the WP experience, just like it is on iPhone and Android. If you handicap a major functionality of those accounts, you're handicapping the platform.

From what you're saying, I think you should be agreeing with me rather than disagreeing with me.

The fact that the online storage is tied to your MS account rather than to your device, strongly suggests that the storage quotas never were anything more than a promotional effort! If MS really intended for the additional storage to be integral to the device's experience, then the storage would instead have been tied to the device. It isn't.

Again, I don't blame anybody for believing otherwise. MS did seem to market the OneDrive benefits as if they were part of the hardware package they were offering. How things actually work just don't jive with what people assumed they were buying.

I don't recognize anything in your post that contradicts that statement.

 

[ianberg]

Knocking the free account from 15 GB to 5 GB and cancelling the 15 GB camera upload bonus just seems petty and short-sighted. Fortunately months ago I'd adopted Flickr, Dropbox, Box and Google Photo for backups so I wasn't really relying on OneDrive anyways. I just thought Microsoft wanted as many users as possible, whether they had Windows or non-Windows tablets and phones and whether or not they used free cloud storage from elsewhere too.

 

[Ten Four]

On the other hand, I'm not sure how reasonable it is to view online storage as something that is integral to a device purchase.

That is just a silly statement--look at how OneDrive was advertised everywhere and still is even today! Look at this ad screenshot from AT&T taken today. It's the first bullet point feature--share everything across all your devices with 15GB of free OneDrive.

 

[920Walker]

Give me a one time purchase cost for a fixed amount of space, like a one time $20 for a permanent 15 GB, with additional 10 GB blocks at $10/10GB. Not sure of the pricing but you get the idea.

I hate subscription because you need to manage them all; change your credit card and it's havoc, you have to run around and change every frigging one of em, it's a PITA. (I know, I just did that).

And if there's ever any kind of mess up by the bank/credit card/service provider/whatever and the account isn't paid, what happens, will I just lose all my photos and data? If I go into a coma or become a hobo for a year, will I come back to a cleaned out, terminated OneDrive account?

Yeah, I know, it's just another $2/month and I'll probably just end up paying it because it's still the easiest solution.

How is this any different than paying any other monthly bill in 2015?

 

[a5cent]

That is just a silly statement--look at how OneDrive was advertised everywhere and still is even today! Look at this ad screenshot from AT&T taken today. It's the first bullet point feature--share everything across all your devices with 15GB of free OneDrive.

*woosh* ... was that my point going over your head? ;-)

I fully admit that the quote makes no sense all by itself. It only makes sense when read in the context of the sentences that followed it, where I explicitly mentioned how MS' advertising is rather misleading once you consider that the 15GB storage aren't actually tied to the device at all.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not excusing MS. I'm just saying that we probably should have realized that exactly those types of advertisements aren't what they appear to be. If it's not tied to the device, then it's not ownership of the device that entitles you to the storage space.

 

[weiser159]

Give me a one time purchase cost for a fixed amount of space, like a one time $20 for a permanent 15 GB, with additional 10 GB blocks at $10/10GB. Not sure of the pricing but you get the idea.

I hate subscription because you need to manage them all; change your credit card and it's havoc, you have to run around and change every frigging one of em, it's a PITA. (I know, I just did that).

And if there's ever any kind of mess up by the bank/credit card/service provider/whatever and the account isn't paid, what happens, will I just lose all my photos and data? If I go into a coma or become a hobo for a year, will I come back to a cleaned out, terminated OneDrive account?

Yeah, I know, it's just another $2/month and I'll probably just end up paying it because it's still the easiest solution.

I hear ya brother (sister?)! This is exactly my issue with the change. I hate adding all of these little subscriptions to my life. I mean it's clear why they're doing it, because they'll make far more money doing that than offering a one time purchase for a smaller amount of space. It's similar to why cable/satellite companies don't offer a la carte programming. However, if they had this option I wouldn't be annoyed with this change.

 

[salazka]

TechRadar just wrote its creepy that Microsoft have people snooping through their drives!

If TechRadar said that, then they are clueless fools you shouldn't even listen to. Knowing how much space you consume and snooping in your data (like google does for instance) are two different things.

Of course they would know how much space you consume what kind of stupid argument is this?

 

[phelme]

I got 100gb from Bing rewards what will happen to that

if you go on your OneDrive and click through where it says "Get more storage" on that left hand pane, it should give you an expiration date. mine is in 2017 sometime.

 

[a5cent]

I hear ya brother (sister?)! This is exactly my issue with the change. I hate adding all of these little subscriptions to my life. I mean it's clear why they're doing it, because they'll make far more money doing that than offering a one time purchase for a smaller amount of space. It's similar to why cable/satellite companies don't offer a la carte programming. However, if they had this option I wouldn't be annoyed with this change.

I get that and agree with both of you too, but it's not realistic to expect MS to provide a service with running costs for a single upfront payment. What MS could do is allow us to pay upfront for any number of months, so we could, say, pay those $2 for the next five years. That would allow us to make a single payment and then forget about it for a reasonable amount of time.

That would seem like a realistic and fair compromise to me, and eliminate most of the subscription based worries.

 

[fgaudet]

I get that and agree with both of you too, but it's not realistic to expect MS to provide a service with running costs for a single upfront payment.

Umm, what about Windows (before 'free' W10)? You pay a single upfront payment, but keep receiving updates. Surely, the Windows update team and servers must incur a hefty running cost...

 

[a5cent]

Umm, what about Windows (before 'free' W10)? You pay a single upfront payment, but keep receiving updates. Surely, the Windows update team and servers must incur a hefty running cost...

Interesting comparison, but definitely not the same thing. Windows has a support life cycle with a predetermined end date. The maintenance cost during that time is factored into the cost of the Windows licence. Once that support life cycle duration expires, you get nothing more from MS, and you as a customer no longer cost MS anything either.

Completely different situation with a service like OneDrive.

 

[weiser159]

I get that and agree with both of you too, but it's not realistic to expect MS to provide a service with running costs for a single upfront payment. What MS could do is allow us to pay upfront for any number of months, so we could, say, pay those $2 for the next five years. That would allow us to make a single payment and then forget about it for a reasonable amount of time.

That would seem like a realistic and fair compromise to me, and eliminate most of the subscription based worries.

I agree with that solution. Subscriptions are often promoted as being a convenience for the consumer but we see through that bull.

The only practical reason I can see MS offering only a subscription based plan is because of the dilemma of what to do with all the stored content when/if an account expires. By having it on a subscription plan the user is more aware of the termination of services.

Some people might compare this new policy to the change Adobe made with Photoshop and selling it as a subscription, however, I see them as completely different. I actually think what they did makes a lot of sense because it brings costs down for the company and gets the latest updates into the hands of all Photoshop users. What's good for the company is passed down to the consumer. OneDrive definitely needs an annual or multi-year payment option, which should also lower the cost to the consumer in the form of a discount.

HOWEVER, in light of all that I still believe MS should have been able to find a way to continue camera roll support and keep the 15 GB's for that purpose. It just seems like a no-brainer considering they own and operate all of these services and devices. But I'm not an IT guy so I could be way off here.

 

[Jochie Van der Merwe]

Spot on!
MS's "story" about users' abuses is a cover up for implementing a policy of catching consumers with a "free" offer and then making them pay when enough of them fell for the "free"-be.
This stunt created a bitter taste, to put it mildly.

 

[Noob1ee]

Can't believe there out people out there defending this stupid stunt by Microsoft.

 

[Ten Four]

Can't believe there out people out there defending this stupid stunt by Microsoft.

The justification for this is believed by nobody, except apparently gullible journalists desperate for a story so they parrot the blog post. It's funny how corporations believe their 1984 speak that is totally dismissed by most of the public. Shows how cloistered people become in large corporations.

 

[StaticXCC]

I'm just saying that we probably should have realized that exactly those types of advertisements aren't what they appear to be.

And we call that... false advertising. It's illegal.

 

[a5cent]

And we call that... false advertising. It's illegal.

Morally, yup, agreed. Legally, I don't know, but I doubt a court would see it that way.

 

[jeffoffline]

Microsoft made the Windows 10 update free for the same reason Apple made their OS updates free... so they could roll out their store. Microsoft knew people would rarely pay $100 to update to the newest version of the OS, they're gambling on the fact that more people will update to Windows 10 and then buy apps through the Windows 10 store in which they get a cut of.

As far as the one drive storage goes, this is the case of different departments not being on even the remotest same page. One Drive syncing is a core part of the Windows experience and Windows Phone desperately needs any advantage they can get to become competitive. Paul stated that most users are not using more than 5 GB, in that case offering the Camera Backup Bonus would not lead to much additional overhead for One Drive and yet they slashed it anyways just as they're about to roll out their new flagship phones with 20 MP cameras. If anyone thinks users won't be aware of that guess again, the die hard Windows fans that will go to buy the phones are aware of that and the AT&T sales reps are well aware of it as well. This is clearly Microsoft shooting itself in the foot cause one division isn't talking to the other.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Microsoft made the Windows 10 update free for the same reason Apple made their OS updates free... so they could roll out their store. Microsoft knew people would rarely pay $100 to update to the newest version of the OS, they're gambling on the fact that more people will update to Windows 10 and then buy apps through the Windows 10 store in which they get a cut of.

As far as the one drive storage goes, this is the case of different departments not being on even the remotest same page. One Drive syncing is a core part of the Windows experience and Windows Phone desperately needs any advantage they can get to become competitive. Paul stated that most users are not using more than 5 GB, in that case offering the Camera Backup Bonus would not lead to much additional overhead for One Drive and yet they slashed it anyways just as they're about to roll out their new flagship phones with 20 MP cameras. If anyone thinks users won't be aware of that guess again, the die hard Windows fans that will go to buy the phones are aware of that and the AT&T sales reps are well aware of it as well. This is clearly Microsoft shooting itself in the foot cause one division isn't talking to the other.

That's pretty much my take but I have to disagree strongly with you on one point. They didn't shoot themselves in the foot. In fact they shot themselves in a place about as far from the foot as the can get.