[save_ferris]

You could argue that all hyper growth “build it and they will come” types of companies do this bait and switch. It’s inherent to the startup culture that emphasizes capturing users above earning profit in the early stages of a company.

Think about how many VC-backed companies offer services at discounted rates today in hopes of being able charge higher rates for that service in the future. This is endemic to tech generally, not just Google.

[wongarsu]

The obvious solution is grandfathering. Google Photos decided to grandfather old photos: only photos uploaded after June 2021 count towards your storage limit. That's nice, but the obvious solution to prevent all this outrage would have been to grandfather in old user accounts: anyone already using Google Photos has no storage limit for compressed images (as before), but new accounts have the new limits. That allows for fast growth with insane offers at the start of the product cycle, while switching to a more profitable model for later users.

This is how most companies operate. For example I'm on a mobile plan that's better than anything currently offered by the provider. They don't force me to switch or change the plan I'm on, they just don't allow anyone to switch to that plan.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

Considering the market penetration of Google Photos and the lack of any compelling reason to switch, I doubt that grandfathering would have accomplished what they're trying to do here. Phone companies also eventually kick people off of grandfathered plans, or change them so substantially that they are no longer recognizable. For example, I remember the AT&T unlimited plan that came in the early days of the iPhone. It started out reasonably cheap but eventually became extremely expensive.

[tchalla]

> That's nice, but the obvious solution to prevent all this outrage would have been to grandfather in old user accounts: anyone already using Google Photos has no storage limit for compressed images (as before), but new accounts have the new limits. That allows for fast growth with insane offers at the start of the product cycle, while switching to a more profitable model for later users.

The fact that Google didn't do it is another reason why one could call it a bait-n-switch model.

[Nasrudith]

That isn't just a tech thing either. Look at "new and improved formulas" or other companies which after they develop a good reputation piss it away cutting corners.

Google has the ultimate smartass retort to justify it to critics especially if they are on Capital Hill. "I thought it was considered unfair competition now to provide something others can't now because we are apparently 'too big' now."

[lkxijlewlf]

> Look at "new and improved formulas" or other companies which after they develop a good reputation piss it away cutting corners.

MBAs have "optimized" the flavor out of everything with their little spreadsheets and graphs and quarterly earnings reports. I can't go to a chain restaurant anymore.

[x87678r]

Not even "able charge higher rates for that service in the future", equally good is just bought out and shut down.

[ortusdux]

Google 'subsidizes' some of their services by leveraging them to gain valuable information. Google voice was used to train their voice analysis algorithms. Recaptcha has been used to transcribe text for google books, road signs etc for street view, and now objects for waymo.

If I had to bet, photos was subsidized by the value of the training pool it generated for their object recognition neural networks. The cost of image storage has only gone up, and the I would image they have enough images to train on, so they did the math and removed the major incentive (unless you buy one of their phones).

I would also bet that they had a meeting at some point trying to figure out how to push people to sign up for google one storage. I just wish they had decided to offer legit customer support for paid users.