[Warning] No More Unlimited Storage for Google Photos

Urian B., Tech Times 11 November 2020, 10:11 pm

Google Photos is taking a turn towards something that not a lot of users are happy with. The photo storage app will no longer be allowing people to store as many photos or videos as possible. According to Google's recent announcement, it was officially stated that Google will no longer allow users to store unlimited high-quality videos and photos all completely free.

Google Photos will be having data limits

Although in an article by The Verge, it was stated that previous uploads won't be counted, this is still quite a bummer for most users. Starting June 1 of 2021, any of the new hi-res photos that will be put into Google Photos will start to be counted within the 15GB free data limit. Once users exceed these allotted data limits, it will then be up to users to pay for the service.

This particular move appears to be included in Google's larger efforts to tone down, or at least monetize, the huge amount of data being stored. Google Sheets, Slides, and Docs will start to implement data limits and Google will now start deleting certain inactive accounts.

Google will charge $1.99 per month for 100GB of storage

According to an article by Mashable, Google will also be rolling out new features to help people manage their storage as well as identify the blurry photos or even large videos that users might want to eventually delete. There will also be a tool that works by helping people estimate their own data needs. As for the given storage limit prices, users will be able to get 100GB of storage all for the price of $1.99 per month.

The cap will also include data stored on Gmail as well as Google Drive. All these palliatives, however, did not actually stem the whole tide of mass-bemoaning that actually occurs whenever a certain tech company eventually decides that it is time for users to pay for something which used to be free.

Google clarifies the monetization plan

Google stated that it won't use Google Photos images for them to monetize from targeted ads. Google also says it won't use them in order for it to train its algorithms. The platform utilizes the photos that are uploaded directly to Image Search for this.

However, according to The Ringer, the whole way that this upcoming service will work allegedly won't be the very same way that it functions in the coming future. It was stated that as of the moment, the ideas still sound quite invasive and could potentially be sold as a sort of innovative tomorrow.

Back in 2017, Google clarified to the Ringer that it does not actually use the Google Photos in order to train its known AI. As of today, the most recent version within the app is said to be asking Photos users to help Google train its own image recognition algorithms through voluntarily labeling their own photos.