In May, Google unveiled Google One, a replacement for its Drive cloud storage service. There’s a free 15GB tier – enough room for about 5,000 photos, depending on the resolution. Then it costs US$1.99 (RM8.30) a month for 100GB and up from there. This includes several types of files previously stashed in Google Drive, plus Gmail emails and photos and videos. The company ended its Chromebook two-year 100GB free storage offer around the same time, while the Pixel free photo storage deal ended in October with the release of the Pixel 4.

Gmail, Drive and Google Photos have more than 1 billion users each. As the company whittles away free storage offers and prompts more people to pay, that creates a potentially huge new revenue stream for the company. If 10% of Gmail users sign up for the new US$1.99 (RM8.30) a month Google One subscription, that would generate almost US$2.4bil (RM10.05bil) a year in annual, recurring sales for the company.

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"I was merrily using the account and one day I noticed I hadn’t received any email since the day before,” said Rod Adams, a nuclear energy analyst and retired naval officer. After using Gmail since 2006, he’d finally hit his 15GB cap and Google had cut him off. Switching away from Gmail wasn’t an easy option because many of his social and business contacts reach him that way.

"I just said ‘OK, been free for a long time, now I’m paying’,” Adams said.

Other Gmail users aren’t so happy about the changes. "I am unreasonably sad about using almost all of my free google storage. Felt infinite. Please don’t make me pay! I need U gmail googledocs!,” one person tweeted in September.

Some people have tweeted panicked messages to Google in recent months as warnings about their storage limits hit.

One self-described tech enthusiast said he’s opened multiple Gmail accounts to avoid bumping up on Google’s storage limits.

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Smartphones dramatically increased the number of photos people take – one estimate put the total for 2017 at 1.2 trillion. Those images quickly fill up storage space on handsets, so tech companies, including Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Google, offered cloud storage as an alternative. Now those online memories are piling up, some of these companies are charging users to keep them.

Apple has been doing this for several years, building its iCloud storage service into a lucrative recurring revenue stream. When iPhone users get notifications that their devices are full and they should either delete photos and other files or pay more for cloud storage, people often choose the cloud option.

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100gb not enough. Need 100gb x 5.
RM8 x 5 = RM40 per month.