Google Photos Abandons "Free Forever" High Quality Backups

Five years ago, when Google announced their Photos service, they announced two tiers of photo quality. Original Quality photos were just that, exactly as originally shot on the camera. These photos would count against a users Google Drive storage limit.

The High Quality tier, however, would be stored for free "forever". This was the promise made in their initial announcement. I knew, as soon as they said it, that nothing could be stored for free forever. Maybe Google, the company that runs YouTube, could handle it. At least if anybody could it would be Google. However, I knew this would have to end sometime.

And now we have a date, June 1, 2021. 

I will not go so far as to call this a bait and switch. I believe that Google had every intention to make this service free for their users. When they announced this, I asked myself how long will this last. I hesitated to use the new service for a while since I didn't want to get the rug pulled out from underneath me.

To their credit they are keeping any photos stored in the service before that date free, it is only the photos after that date that will go against your Google Drive quota. 

However, that is what this is. I backed down from my stance and uploaded my photo library to Google Photos a few years ago. I have been amazed at how much more useful my photo library has been. I found pictures I thought lost, remembered events I had forgotten about, and been able to easily share my hobbies with distant family. The new Places feature in Google Photos has opened another method of exploring my past that I didn't realize I was missing. 

Fortunately, I have the technical skills to roll my own photo backup solution. 

I am disappointed that Google is making this change. Then again I have been disappointed in a lot of Google's behavior since they dropped their motto "Don't be evil". I will definitely have to clean up my Google Drive account to make room for my photos, and I may end up upgrading my account to add storage as needed. I will have to decide if the service worth the cost in the future, something I didn't have to decide before. 

Just a word to those creating a new service: don't offer services that you can't make scale. Obviously nobody can store all of the pictures of their users for free forever. So don't offer it.

Then again, I guess I only have myself to blame for falling for it.