The email from Google tells me that I’m almost out of storage. When I run out of storage, I won’t be able to receive new emails. The quick solution to this problem, the solution I’ll employ, is to delete some videos (mostly concerts that I’ve gone to). I have them saved elsewhere – at least I think I do – so it’s not like I’m going to “lose” them.
Years ago, Google offered unlimited free storage. In 2021, they changed that policy to cap free storage at 15GB. This is a pretty common tactic used by big tech – lock users in and then change the terms and charge a premium for the way things used to be. At which point, the cost of switching (not necessarily a financial cost, but more in terms of a hassle) becomes high enough that users either pay the new fee or figure out some work-arounds. Apple does this. Netflix does this. Amazon does this. Cory Doctorow, one of my new heroes, has been documenting this practice of enshittification.
I’m a fairly principled person (by which I mean stubborn and sometimes spiteful). I don’t like it when the rules of the game are changed and I’m told that I can either deal with it / suck it up or leave. I frequently consider leaving.
I started using Google photos in 2016 or 2017. Someone I was dating might have turned me on to it. The problem I was having then was that I had limited storage capacity on my phone / apple account. I have over 4000 songs that I own along with a bunch of photos and videos stored on my phone. I’ve already written about what a pain in the ass iTunes is (and sadly, several years after writing that, I still haven’t figured it out).
I converted to Google photos because my phone wasn’t backing up (limited storage). I then deleted a bunch of photos from my apple account. I did this to free up space, but also because Apple had this knack for putting together collages of photos and showing them to me as a reminder of… (this day, this month, this year, this pet, this person, this type of lighting, etc.). I like the collages when they’re of the pets I’ve had or of sunsets. I didn’t always want to be reminded of that pleasant day I spent with my ex in DC or Princeton or Asbury Park. My general philosophy is that these people existed, the events happened, and when I think of them, I prefer to do so in a fond way. As such, I tend not to delete the photos. I have shoeboxes of photos from my pre-digital life, and I have no intention of throwing those away. That said, I didn’t need my phone to remind me of my past as often as it did.
Then, about a year ago, just after getting a new phone and when my apple account again grew too large to backup, I bought into apple’s 99 cent per month cloud storage plan. This increased my cloud storage capacity from 5GB to 50GB. My phone has 80GB capacity – so if I fill my phone (which I don’t intend to do) I still wouldn’t have enough space for a full backup. But I heave enough for now. When the email from Google came, I thought, if I’m already paying for extra storage on one platform, I might as well just switch over to that platform. And that’s when I realized I had already deleted a bunch of things from that platform when I committed to using Google photos with unlimited space.
This is what I mean by the cost of switching. My definitive repository (Google) is telling me I need to purchase more space. The repository where I have space (iCloud) isn’t definitive. Making it definitive would mean exporting a log of each database /file system, doing a side by side comparison, then move what’s missing from one to the other. There might be some software solutions to this syncing problem, but because the two companies Apple and Google are competitors, it’s seldom a seamless process (hence my iTunes rant from a few years ago). And one other cute little thing that I forgot about – because of the way these two platforms do sync up. When I delete from Google, it automatically deletes from Apple. If I turn syncing off, it will delete it only from Google, but if I ever turn it back on, it brings all of the deleted content back. AND, because this is all superfun, if I download a video to my PC, I need to buy an app that will allow my media player to decode the Apple video. And at this point, I feel like Microsoft, Apple, and Google can just eff all the way off.
Being competitors, these two companies intentionally avoid cross-platform interoperability. They also know that by charging a fee as low as a buck a month, users will pay it to avoid the time and hassle involved in switching. Additionally, user are fearful of losing their data – we don’t want to go swimming through life without our emotional floaties (music and photos).
This is also where my stubborn, spiteful streak comes in and cozies up on the side where my Buddhist tendencies rest. Maybe the bigger lesson is one about letting go. Letting go of the photos, of the videos, of the music, of the digital life. As I grow more cantankerous, I find myself inching ever closer to a stance that says let it all go. The digital tools (Google, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes) give me hours of joy – they introduce me to new poets, they show me things that make me laugh, they play my music, and they remind me of the people, places, pets, and things I’ve loved. But they’re increasing the surcharge for this access – both financially and emotionally – and I’m not sure how much longer I want to continue paying for more while getting less.