It rarely takes more than a cursory glance at my Facebook feed to see that people don’t necessarily like change, even from services that they are not paying for. They have no trouble complaining about the reworking of a “timeline” or “newsfeed” each and every time that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) changes something. Never mind that the change might be for the better, it’s change. And millions still fear it despite living in a world where things change all the time.
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that no matter what sort of user you might be, you will now be entitled to 15GB of free storage space. They’ve done this by just simply combining all of your free storage into one, and giving you added flexibility.
The blog post read: “With this new combined storage space, you won’t have to worry about how much you’re storing and where.
“For example, maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail. Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want.”
Google made the announcement just before the Google I/O developers conference begins this week. The changes will “roll out over the next couple of weeks,” Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) said in a blog post.
Google plans to update its Google Drive storage page to better show people how their storage is allocated and allow them to see this clearly.
“Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of your storage use across Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. And if you need more storage, this is your place to upgrade, with plans starting at $4.99/month for 100 GB,” continued the blog post.
These changes and the consolidation will return Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to the top of the list of companies providing the most free space to its users. Dropbox currently starts free subscribers at 2GB, Microsoft SkyDrive users get 7GB, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iCloud, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Cloud Storage, and SugarSync offer 5GB for free.
Unlike the other companies mentioned, this move will bother Dropbox the most, as they don’t offer anything but cloud storage compared to the others on this list.
