Amazon Drive removing unlimited storage plan
It's frustrating to watch cloud companies subsidize their storage, in order to break into the market with a product that is too good to be true.This strategy is the worst possible scenario for our entire industry. Users feel slighted, and the trustworthiness of the cloud in general is gradually eroded, as the scenario plays itself out over and over.It feels like ransomware. Pay more or we'll delete your files.When Dropbox for Business launched, it was $12.50 / user / month for "all the storage you need". Just recently Dropbox announced pricing changes, which will take effect in 2018. The new unlimited plan is $20.00 / user / month. And for those unwilling to pay, there's now a fixed storage tier, which is slightly cheaper than the original price, but it's capped at 1 TB.Microsoft OneDrive included unlimited storage with any Office 365 subscription. After millions of users bought in, Microsoft dropped the maximum storage to 1 TB. Users were then given the choice of deleting their files, or moving elsewhere.Mozy had an unlimited plan, and then dropped it and raised prices. SugarSync had an unlimited plan, but eventually dropped it.Barracuda offered virtually unlimited cloud storage with their Copy.com service. A few years in and Barracuda shut down the entire service. Users were given very little notice, and had to move elsewhere.Bitcasa, one of the original "unlimited" cloud storage providers (and a TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield finalist) crashed and burned three years in. Again, users were given very little notice, and there was talk of a class-action lawsuit.Time and time again we're seeing startups burn through their capital subsidizing the storage as some sort of brilliant marketing plan. It's not.Disclaimer, I work at https://www.sync.com