Google lured billions of consumers to its digital services by offering copious free cloud storage. That\u2019s beginning to change.<\/p>\n
The Alphabet Inc. unit has whittled down some free storage offers in recent months, while prodding more users toward a new paid cloud subscription called Google One. That\u2019s happening as the amount of data people stash online continues to soar.<\/p>\n
When people hit those caps, they realize they have little choice but to start paying, or risk losing access to emails, photos and personal documents. The cost isn\u2019t excessive for most consumers, but at the scale Google operates, this could generate billions of dollars in extra revenue each year for the company. Google didn\u2019t respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n
A big driver of the shift is Gmail. Google shook up the email business when Gmail launched in 2004 with much more free storage than rivals were providing at the time. It boosted the storage cap every couple of years, but in 2013 it stopped. People\u2019s in-boxes kept filling up. And now that some of Google\u2019s other free storage offers are shrinking, consumers are beginning to get nasty surprises.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was merrily using the account and one day I noticed I hadn\u2019t received any email since the day before,\u201d said Rod Adams, a nuclear energy analyst and retired naval officer. After using Gmail since 2006, he\u2019d finally hit his 15 GB cap and Google had cut him off. Switching away from Gmail wasn\u2019t an easy option because many of his social and business contacts reach him that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just said \u2018OK, been free for a long time, now I\u2019m paying,\u2019\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n
Other Gmail users aren\u2019t so happy about the changes. \u201cI am unreasonably sad about using almost all of my free google storage. Felt infinite. Please don\u2019t make me pay! I need U gmail googledocs!,\u201d one person\u00a0tweeted\u00a0in September.<\/p>\n
Some people have tweeted panicked messages to Google in recent months as warnings about their storage limits hit.<\/p>\n