Skip to content

Free as in anti-competitive

There's big questions in what it means for Google to offer free cloud photo storage and then take it away when the free service spoiled the market for paid competitors for so long.

Seamus Byrne
Seamus Byrne
4 min read
Free as in anti-competitive

This week Google announced it would end its unlimited free photo storage service. There’s obvious reasons for doing so, and Google argued the case in its blog post announcing the decision.

It’s annoying and will force a big shift in our relationship with photo storage and backups of all kinds. Many will maybe panic at the idea that the future of where they put their photos is uncertain. If you have to pay, should you reconsider where you store them? What is in there now will be given the ‘doesn’t count’ treatment so you don’t have to move them… but do you really want a split library of the history of your life?

So many cultural issues attached to reorganising our digital archives in this context. But the biggest question should probably look closely at what Google did to the photo storage industry when it offered free photo storage in the first place.

If Woolworths started offering free milk there would be uproar over anti-competitive behaviour, because the local corner store can’t afford to wear a loss like that. It has caused its own problems that the big supermarkets have offered very cheap milk – but free? The consumer watchdog would step in.

Yet, like in so many other contexts, the digital world always accepts the idea that offering genuinely valuable utility services for free is OK for the big guys to do. If some other company wanted to try to innovate in that space, well they’d better be able to convince people why it’s worth paying for the service – because it’s OK that other companies offer that same base function for free.

I used to use Smugmug and Flickr, and those companies had their key features and options that they tried to make their attractive proposition for ‘Pro’ customers to pay a monthly fee. But with Google, we all had the account, and it was so easy to just say “Yes” and watch it all vacuumed into one place without a major fuss.

Today I pay Apple for my photo storage alongside still having a second home for backups at Google Photos. But I’m sure many Android users have made this their home.

If five years ago someone had said “free storage until we decide we’ve killed enough competition and we’ve copied enough of their features that you will find it easiest to just pay us instead of try to move it all somewhere else” would as many people have said yes? Maybe. We’ll never know.

Control the storage, control the customer in so many ways.

Podcasts

Enforced temptation control?

Byteside: Do school kids need some help resisting the temptation of the smartphone? Do the rest of us? Plus Apple, QR codes, Netflix Direct and more.

byteside.com  •  Share

Hearthstone: Madness at the Darkmoon Faire roundtable

High Resolution: Highlights from a roundtable on the latest Hearthstone expansion, featuring Game Director Ben Lee and Game Designer John McIntyre.

byteside.com  •  Share

Deepfaking Trump with Harry Shearer

Jetpacks Are Overrated: We speak to virtual production studio Mod’s Michela Ledwidge about the tech that brought Harry Shearer’s Donald Trump satire to freakish life.

byteside.com  •  Share

News

Google Photos just made the case for breaking up Big Tech

This is an even better take than mine on how Google killed photo-focused businesses with its free service and now as it shifts to charge for storage the alternatives are hard to find.

onezero.medium.com  •  Share

The Dish gets official Wiradjuri name

The Parkes radio telescope, along with two other CSIRO space instruments, have been given Wiradjuri names to better connect them to country.

byteside.com  •  Share

Twitch explains confusing copyright crackdown, urges users to delete videos

Twitch apologizes for vague DMCA notices (after waiting months to get around to handing them over to users), and it discusses pressure from record labels. Ultimately, the music industry noticed Twitch exists and now it’s begging users to stop using copyright music on streams.

arstechnica.com  •  Share

Researchers have a plan to give the GPT-3 AI some "common sense"

Scientists are giving the best language AI the power of vision, allowing it to become even more indistinguishable from human speech.

byteside.com  •  Share

YouTube defends choice to leave up videos with false election claims

Pathetic.

www.theverge.com  •  Share

Features

PAX Online and digital conventions: are they any good for indie developers?

Game developers tell Byteside how digital-only events changed their story in 2020, and the lessons to make physical events better in future.

byteside.com  •  Share

Damsel's awkwardly polite journey to the Playstation 4

Two years from original release to PS4. Why? We asked, and the answer reveal so much about being too nice, and the quality of great QA.

byteside.com  •  Share

The new console smell

Happy Birthday to the only next-gen console that feels next gen

There’s a lot of gadgets to be excited about this week. But it’s the PlayStation 5’s new DualSense controller that is the most revolutionary.

byteside.com  •  Share

Xbox Series X: the launch review

The best Xbox you’ve seen. A new benchmark. Stunningly familiar. But if you didn’t get a pre-order? It’s going to be fine to wait until 2021.

byteside.com  •  Share

Overanalysing the Xbox box

This is the extended, over hyped, over dramatic, over detailed Xbox Series X unboxing you have been waiting for.

byteside.com  •  Share

Xbox's 'Gaming For Everyone' proving more than just a slogan

Xbox’s big console launch in New Zealand showed that “Gaming For Everyone” isn’t just a slogan for the company.

byteside.com  •  Share

Interesting

Paradise Killer and Vaporwave: more than just an aesthetic

Talking to Oli Clarke Smith, Creative Director of Paradise Killer, we look at how the vaporwave genre and aesthetic have evolved.

byteside.com  •  Share

Powell's Books is selling a new perfume scented like old books

The famed Powell’s bookstore has released new fragrance that mimics the smell of old books, with three key scents forming the cosy aroma.

byteside.com  •  Share

GoogleArt & CulturePolitics

Seamus Byrne Twitter

Founder and Head of Content at Byteside. Brings two decades of experience covering tech, digital culture, and their impacts on society.


Related Posts

11 great panels to hit at PAX Aus 2024

So many panels, so little time. Here's a few highlights to fit in your schedule at this year's PAX in Melbourne.

Photo of a crowd in a large theatre, seated in a blue lit darkened room.

HTC Vive XR Elite: How far have we come?

HTC's latest is another big leap forward for VR fans, but why is it still not enough for everyone else?

The VR headset and pair of controllers floating on a white background.

Google Pixel 8a review: full featured AI power for everyone

The Pixel 8a can go toe-to-toe with the Pixel Pro as well as the best from Samsung and Apple. Google's AI software might now push its hardware into the lead for most users.

The black handset sits on a grey textured and patterned rug.