Microsoft Backs Down, Lets OneDrive Users Keep Their Free 15GB of Storage 80
New submitter Farfetched619 writes: In November, Microsoft revealed that they would be reducing free OneDrive storage from 15GB to 5GB for all users, current and new. Microsoft mentioned that some subscribers were hosting movies and large files on the service, which has prompted the company to make this drastic change. Now, after community feedback, Microsoft is allowing free OneDrive users to retain their 15GB of free storage space.
Another reason to avoid "cloud" solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
"Terms are always subject to change"
Re: Another reason to avoid "cloud" solutions (Score:2, Insightful)
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I think this is more a case of "You get what you pay for".
You pay nothing, you get what you get.
Other cloud service providers take your money and and make a contractual agreement to what they have to deliver for that.
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It is not just the cloud. :(
Dumb argument (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dumb argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. If you advertise X, then you should assume, right from the very beginning, that *EVERYONE* is going to use the maximum amount of X, and plan accordingly. Otherwise, it demonstrates that you are dishonest and never intended for people to actually use X -- it was just an advertising gimmick designed to draw people in for something that you never intended to deliver.
Re:Dumb argument (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, it is a "tragedy of the commons" argument.
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You're assuming it is profitable. I think the point is most services like OneDrive / iCloud / DropBox / Whatever try to get you hooked by offering limited storage so you'll upgrade. Companies lose money on the teasers but make money when people go onto the service.
It could be they miscalculated and actually people only need 10GB of storage. So instead of roping people in (sorta like a drug dealer) they aren't getting a high enough conversion ratio to the full service.
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Then we're in the case "they're losing money when people use between 5GB and 15GB". I think we're on the same side. The "15GB" was an advertising gimmick, which was the original point. As you said it could be that they were satisfying people's needs instead of roping people in. It has nothing to do with a "tragedy of the commons". A better analogy is an ice cream parlor which advertises "taste 15 flavors for free!", and the owner notices that a lot of people taste 10+ flavors and leave on a full stomach in
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While that may be a reasonable calculation by the company, their legal obligation remains to deliver what's promised. If they've promised 15GB, they should be capable of delivering that to all their users. Yeah, they can have terms of service exceptions/exclusions that make it less likely that most people will come anywhere near it.
From what I know, the 15GB only applies to Office 365 users
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Not bullshit, no. A reasonable assumption is that usage falls on a curve of some kind and that the peak value is probably not everybody using all 15Gb.
And it makes as many friends as overbooking airplane flights does. All over a thumbs drive worth of storage.
It's just a business decision for them.
Apparently one that wasn't so popular either. And no tragedy of commons needed in this case.
The bean counters who may have decided they should cut this storage in half - did they consider the effects of popularity? Did they not consider that some users would use all their space? Where were they during the initial stages of this
Bean counters are very good at bottom lines - even when those bottom
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I have 12 Terabytes of storage on my desk. The smallest thumb drive I have is 32 GB. 15 GB of storage isn't a blip.
Re: Dumb argument (Score:1)
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Everything is relative. For something the size of Microsoft........
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Bullshit. If you advertise X, then you should assume, right from the very beginning, that *EVERYONE* is going to use the maximum amount of X, and plan accordingly. Otherwise, it demonstrates that you are dishonest and never intended for people to actually use X -- it was just an advertising gimmick designed to draw people in for something that you never intended to deliver.
You probably know about internet overselling. In fact, the statistical truth that not everyone is going to use a service to the maximal extent of their capability is used in every area where people need to plan. You don't dedicate a persons internet line to them personally since it is quite unlikely that they use it fully all the time. You don't have as many toilets as employees at a company as not everyone will use it at the same time. If you offer storage, not everyone will use the same amount of space as
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You probably know about internet overselling. In fact, the statistical truth that not everyone is going to use a service to the maximal extent of their capability is used in every area where people need to plan.
Perhaps the GP realized that it's not the same thing: For internet conenctions, most people *are* using the max speed quite often -- every time they load a large image, etc. But as you say, there's also a lot of dead time. For cloud storage I'm having a hard time imagining someone using 10 GB for a short while and then deleting stuff to use 1 GB. So the customers aren't seeing any benefit from the overselling. The only advantage for MS is to have a bigger number than Google, Dropbox etc., so like the GP sai
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then you should assume, right from the very beginning, that *EVERYONE* is going to use the maximum amount of X
That is an instant trip to a failed business and shows a clear lack of understanding of your customers. Assuming everyone will use the max of everything results in highly wasteful over-provisioning which from a cost point of view can be just as damaging as under-provisioning.
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Your defense of this argument is also idiotic. For a large company to make this offer without a basic economic analysis would be ridiculous, and to be surprised by uses they advertised (storing video, photos, and documents) would also. All you can eat buffets clearly understand that they need to feed people all they can eat, if that turns out to not be a profitable stance they charge FUTURE customers more or offer less, but they don't kick out people who took them up on the offer. Internet carriers always c
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All you can eat buffets clearly understand that they need to feed people all they can eat, if that turns out to not be a profitable stance they charge FUTURE customers more or offer less, but they don't kick out people who took them up on the offer.
No, but they can tell all customers in the room "sorry, we're out of grilled pork". Customers are still free to stay (... and partake in the other foods, that may still be left). And they still need to pay full price, even those that look like Miss Piggy :-)
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Maybe they would have been ok with 15GB of personal files. They mentioned movies and large files, so their beef could be that they weren't able to extract personal information from them and monetize.
What their competitors offer (Score:2)
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2GB is almost nothing. I don't think I've seen a thumb drive smaller than 4GB for sale in a long time and those come in a three pack now for like $5. I wont say it's useless but really I don't see how it's worth paying for. I imagine the personal information they sift for is worth more than the storage to them.
OneDrive quotas (Score:2)
honeypot, storage is free (Score:1)
Storage is for the most part free, especially compared to the meta-data and other marketing analyses that can be done on the data people are storing. Hello NSA treasure-trove.
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Secondly, fifteen gigabytes is the equivalent of three blank DVDs, a ninety-cent value! This is a battle over ninety cents.
Yeah. 15 Gb is so small as to be insignificant, 5 is pointless. Easier to buy a thumb drive and use that for storage. At least the thumb drive won't decide one day to only allow you to store a third of what it was allowing you to store.
Re: more details (Score:2)
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Yea, because a thumb drive automatically syncs to your various PCs, tablets, and phones. And replicates itself to different geographical areas and keeps previous versions and backups. Yep, it's clearly the same as a DVD or a thumb drive.
First world problem, sir.
Sarcasm rant follows...
One time, I damn near died from the stress and exhaustion involved when I had to manually load in something from a thumb drive. Can you believe, it? First I had to put it into the USB slot, which is way too complicated - I even had to look for the USB slot. I cried a little by this point. Then a very confusing screen popped up, asking me what I wanted to do. Holy hell! How would I know? So after what seemed like forever, I chose to open it. I was sweating
Re: more details (Score:2)
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My camera, phone, and tablet do not have USB ports.
My camera has a little card I put into my computer, my Phone automatically loads it's pictures via bluetooth
My USB drive point was that 5 Gbytes or 15 Gbytes is probably the amount of files I have in my trash at any given moment. It means absolutely nothing.It is of absolutely no use to me.
I need way more than 32/64/128 GB at a time. It starts adding up fast.
No kidding. Would you agree that my point is that that 5 or 15 Gbytes is laughingly useless?
Cloud is the future and you're being a pedantic dinosaur on purpose.
When they can give me multiple terabytes of storage that I can pay the same price as my drives - total? I'll think about
Not really backing down (Score:2)
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People who have been told or heard about the whole mess would have already opted in to retain their 15+15 storage. The uservoice page, which Microsoft is using for their OneDrive feedback, that called for reverting the change garnered over 70k upvotes. MS's response on that page also included a link for people to "opt-in" to retain their 15+15GB cloud storage. Eventually everyone will know about it.
The article title is a bit misleading, however. Microsoft didn't really back down. They merely gave people a c
hmm (Score:1)
they cut the 15gb to 5gb for free users at the same time that they rolled back "unlimited" to 1tb for paying users.
now they're "capitulating" on the 5gb diversion, but maintaining the 1tb cap (after a one-year grace period) which is what they actually wanted. my guess is that Microsoft's lobbyists have been working over-time teaching the marketing department some basic Washingtonian tactics.
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someone want to explain how this is flamebait?
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Well, it used to be that if you pointed out a truth about Linux then it was flamebait. Then it extended to Microsoft. Then Uber. PHP was in there somewhere.
I think flamebait means that you're saying something true so they think that you're saying it for no reason except to flame (varied definitions but call it needlessly going off on someone/something). Mostly, it just means you told the truth.
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makes sense to me. thanks.
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You can set up a VPN at home if you need access to your shit while out.
http://www.howtogeek.com/221001/how-to-set-up-your-own-home-vpn-server/
Dead link.
I doubt this is going to cost them much... (Score:2)
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I thought the issue was whether people got a free 15G or 5G. Neither of these will backup multiple terabytes.
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Large Files (Score:1)