For more than 5 years, Google has encouraged users to store their photos on Google Drive in their high-quality compressed mode, which has allowed them to upload an unlimited number of photos to Google Drive and keep phone storage available , excluding the originals.
Google’s Anil Sabharwal has promised that high-quality storage offers “nearly identical visual quality” compared to the original photos.
Recently, 4 trillion photos later, Google, meanwhile, started to turn off the tap on unlimited uploads to Google Drive, with users being asked to pay if they use more than 15 GB as of June 1, 2021.
With Google having a financial incentive to get users to use their storage and reach their storage limit, high-quality storage is suddenly no longer good enough for Google.
In an email sent to Google Photo users announcing their new premium photo editing features, Google was also suggesting that users switch from high-quality uploads to original quality or were at risk of damaging their photos.
They note that “original quality photos preserve most details and allow you to enlarge, crop and print photos with less pixelation”.
The email includes the following photo example that demonstrates exactly how harmful “High Quality” compression is:
Suffice it to say whether the high-quality compressed mode is as bad as Google suggested that the company just destroyed the memory of a billion Android users.
Most likely, however, Google is being hypocritical at both ends – they shouldn’t have made exaggerated promises about unlimited high-quality storage in 2015, nor should they scare users into upgrading to paid plans with images of comparison in 2021.
As a reminder – for Samsung’s Android users, the Office 365 subscription offers the best bottom line, offering 1 TB of storage plus access to a wide range of applications and services on the desktop and mobile for a small monthly fee, with same advantages of synchronizing with your gallery application on desktop and mobile.
What do our readers think of Google’s latest move? Let us know below.
via Forbes