"Was the customer backlash expected? Corpus paused. For 12 seconds. “No,” he finally said."

If this is true, then he's an idiot, pure and simple. He does not know his customer base at all.  And either he hasn't bothered to hire people who understand customer behavior, or he's too arrogant to listen to them.

Sure you can charge for storage. That's a given.  But do some market research to see what your customer base will accept, charge based on size of account, give notice, and don't treat your customers like someone who has been caught red-handed stealing their neighbor's cable.  They signed up for the service under the terms offered, their clicks supported the advertising dollars that used to finance this operation for over a decade, and handling a change in business model like this is textbook crazy.  

Congratulations, Mr. Corpus, you have now surpassed Netflix for boneheaded price increase moves.