Not sure I was 'taking a side' by any means, but simply pointing out the cost for the storage was clearly above and beyond anything 'market' rate.
The fact that it happens to be Google, doesn't change the fact that it's going above and beyond market price per TB of storage.
An analogy would be it is still murder even if you kill a Nazi. The person on the other side doesn't justify the action regardless of how evil or how many million/billions/etc that they make.
Equating this to murder is really something. Again, this is something that the T&Cs originally allowed, but then it was changed. It's not illegal, like murder. Also, what is the market price per TB? How much does each TB cost google? The reason any of this is any issue is most likely because they need to juice their earnings to appease their shareholders.
I'm checking out as I wasn't equating here, just making an analogy to prove a point, but I can see it sailed over your head.
Google "Price per TB"
You'd want to ask Google as I don't work for them.
A private company that wants to make money? Madness, they should give us unlimited all for free to save the planet!
I just think we're in late stage capitalism and companies like google and most others milk everyone for everything they can. A private company can try to make money, but again, they make so so much. You say you're not taking a side, but it's pretty obvious which side you're on from every comment that you make. You shouldn't try to pretend that you're neutral but just a believer in free markets for cloud data storage.
If they do otherwise they will lose jobs or even end up in jail. Google is public company - many people invested in their shares and have certain expectations. And their management is obliged by law to try everything possible to make profit.
It is not faceless thing like many dreamers think. There are pensions funds, people savings etc. Do not expect shareholders to support freebie business practices.
Private company can burn all their capital if this is their wish. And even provide free storage in the process. But then obviously wont last forever...
That is NOT a thing AT ALL. I wish people would stop spreading FUD like that. It has never been a thing in any legal context. It's shit CxO and the board made up to defend their risk taking and their bonuses.
You need to go back to debate club. Also, it is not my job to figure out if Google or any of the others make money off of me. The deal was, unlimited storage for x amount of dollares. I kept up my part of the bargain. They did not. Google said in an interview this past summer, that they restructured their offering and removed unlimited because the vast majority of their users didnt need it and were not even using the (obviously secretly) assigned space and only a very small fraction of their base was abusing their generous policy. That statement is pukeworthy on its own but if you look at it, what they're saying is they made massive amounts of money on all the clients they roped in with the unlimited marketing (and it was used large and heavily) and at some point decided that they wanted to get rid of the few that really cost them money. It's called bait and switch. Stop defending shit practices like these.
That's a super counter argument which I'm sure you learned in debate club as you neglected to make any point and made a personal attack. Solid debate skills. I'm red from that burn.
Generally, it takes a few bad apples to kill the bunch and abusing the service unfortunately requires the service to be restructured as they are a private company with the goal to make money.
If it's profitable, start up your own company and offer unlimited storage. Plenty of takers per this thread.
That's the whole point of this thread and mainly why I replied as the top of this thread is actually comparing providers per cost per TB to make it a useful conversation but as anything, it has degenerated into this slop, which is probably partly my fault for not just locking this and being done with it as it's very far off target, but oh well.
Once you get that court settlement for the bait and switch, please post the outcome.
Yeh, right, like any ordinary person has a chance to take a massive global corporation to court - at least be serious . . corporations that size DO get away with murder - there is a very good reason Google stopped using their original slogan "Do No Evil" . .
For the record, got that today :
Weâre providing you with written notice per our contract requirements that your Dropbox Advanced plan will not renew, effective on your next renewal date after December 29, 2023. When this occurs, your team will go into locked state, and you will be able to view but not edit the files and folders in your Dropbox account. Once your team is in locked state, youâll have 60 days to migrate your data, after which your data will be subject to deletion. We strongly encourage you to transfer your data out of Dropbox before this happens.
Per our previous email communications, in the period leading up to the end of your contract you will be transitioned to Dropbox Advancedâs updated storage policy. This transition will take place on November 27.
So, I guess I won't be able to write very soon, since i'll be over quota even before the renew date. That sucks... And then, 60 days to migrate the data after the "non" renew date (mid 2024 for me). Oh well....
Just got off the chat with Dropbox to reaffirm the impact and was told:
I'm sorry but your Dropbox Advanced plan will not be renewed, and cancelled effective December 29th, 2023.
My renew date is May 2024âŚ
Agreed. There's a very important legal principle that states that "no one is forbidden, nor obliged, to do anything under any circumstances except by force of law". And I have never seen a law that forced anyone to make profit, specially not myoptic, short term profit at the expense of a company's reputation and future business as we are seeing here.
Re: current and future business, I for one will never buy anything from Google again, and furthermore I' m specifically dis-recommending Google to all of my clients and acquaintances, and I bet most other people here are doing the same. I'm pretty sure that in very little time Google will loose more money over that than just keeping their part of the deal regarding the meager 35TB of data I had stored there.
That's exactly it. If you can't provide something, you should never promise (much less take people's money for) it in the first place.
Whaaat? What happened to the "youâll be able to continue utilizing your current storage amount at the time youâre notified, plus an additional 5TB credit of pooled storage for one year at no additional charge to your existing plan" Dropbox previously announced?
Every reponse you post is essentially "you're wrong, I'm right, here's my witty reason why".
The thread title is "unlimited" alternatives. You probably should lock it since all you do is tell people why they are wrong for wanting unlimited options. Talking about options that cost over $10k a year is a non-starter as the vast majority of people can't afford that.
Really? I'm sharing an opinion and giving me perspective as you are.
Right so how does your post tie in to that? How do many of the other posts tie iinto that as it's generally complaining and vitroil like this.
Huh? I'm not sure what that means at all. Sorry. I was a Google Drive user and moved. I was a Dropbox user and moved so I'm entitled to my opinion just like everyone else. The goal here is sharing information and perspective. Mine isn't anymore 'right' than yours as our perspective is our truth generally.
Did you have a counter point to anything or were you just going for a witty reply to my witty quips?
Just trying to understand, so Google and Dropbox should offer unlimited forever based on that or can they ever change their stance? I think many of these companies would have let it go far longer, but the outliers make it a no go for long term as with no limits, people go bananas.
I personally kept about 200TB without bothering to clean up any data since it was unlimited. I migrated all back to local storage and with the current prices, it was a cheaper long term option for me since I was able to clean up a lot of unneeded data.
I've read many posts with people with hundreds/petabytes of data. I know I was getting far too good a price per TB for my data needs and don't see the point of complaining about the changes as in reality, we all had to know it was coming.
I can't believe Google didn't really enforce the 3 limit for many, many years.
How do any of your posts contribute to the discussion though?
Uh? Limited?
But to cut the discussion short: anyone that makes a deal for something, yes -- they should stick to it. And if conditions change, it's OK to renegotiate -- but not to unilaterally force new rules down the other party's throat.
That's so basic that I find amazing that people are even discussing it.
Typo - early 
I meant unlimited and fixed that typo
That would make sense, but I doubt even if they did that, the price that they would offer would be a non starter anyway. I forget what Dropbox told me when I was chatting with them, but it was someething like 700-1000 a month, which makes no sense.
I think my point was that the price per TB was a steal and getting to be 'market' fair would price me (and I think most other people) out.
Might be cultural? In the US, it's far more common for terms to change without much chat as there is usually some disclaimer that says you agree to the changes by agreeing to the TOS..
My take was the price per TB was way too good to be true so it had to stop at some point and I'd have to pay more per TB.
Not sure I'm debating is Google evil or not as I don't recommend or use really any Google products but that's a personal choice for everyone.
Thanks for the thoughtful, detailed reply. And sorry if I responded before your message was quite ready and ended up replying to a typo.
Can we agree that Google should have at least tried to talk to us, instead of just unilaterally setting an arbitrary limit and then start evicting people and removing their data? (this is what they are doing to my old account that was still accessible read-only, and with less than 30 days of notice)
I think there's a big difference between what is 'right' and what is 'legal'. Many people and "cultures" confuse the two -- but they are definitely not the same. And I think that's a reason because, in many places, consenting behavior between adults (say, prostitution) is forbidden by law -- because if it wasn't, then almost everyone would be a prostitute, as many would just say, "it's not illegal, and I make a bit more money on the side, so why not?" (which is basically the reason Google is doing what it's doing to our data).
Anyway, my point is that even if what Google is doing is 'legal' -- and IMO it's not possible to say it is, unless and until it's tested in a court of law -- it's definitely not 'right'. And I don't do business with evil companies.