It's good to have diversity in the market, and you should use whatever service you want (I don't really see anything in the article to suggest that merging storage quotas is a benefit over dropbox, anyway, it's just a simplification of split storage limits that I know has confused at least some people), but you're reaching with those examples.

Both the Maps API quota and the AppEngine price changes were not consumer product changes, and the free Google Apps account change wasn't taking anything away from anyone, it's just no longer offering a free tier for future consumers. The only people with room to complain on that one were the people on HN that day talking about having clients in the pipeline that they'd now have to add an extra charge for because there was no warning, but if you already have a free account, there's nothing to "fall for" but making an assumption that you would be able to sign up for more free accounts.

I am not railing against diversity in the market. I like diversity and I am glad they released Google Drive. My response was to the parent questioning slightly more expensive alternatives, not to the piece of news itself.

As to your reply, as I was already mentioning, Google Storage itself was cheaper prior to Drive and I was using it for Picasa. I'm still on the old plan, paying a yearly $20 for 80 GB of storage (because I may use it for Docs and because I was too lazy to pull some photos out of Picasa).

You can always come up with a rationale like the Maps API and App Engine not being "consumer products", however Google is the only company I have a relationship with that increases prices instead of decreasing them and that takes away freebies. Amazon's AWS services are also not consumer products and they get cheaper over time. Amazon's freebies have a clear expiration date (like the 1-year free tier, which you know lasts for only 1 year, because it's in the freaking title).

Speaking of App Engine, they not only changed their prices, they changed their pricing scheme, breaking the original promise of the service. I could rail endlessly about how App Engine sucks, but that's for another discussion.

Speaking of Google Apps - you view it as a special offer. I view it as a broken promise, because they never mentioned that they are going to pull this option after releasing it.

First of all, I ended up saying to several small business owners "create an account on Google Apps, it's both free and awesome". Now their stuff is tied to Google Apps. For now their accounts are free, but you never know. They are also subject to Google's TOS, so they could get locked out of their accounts by a script that calculated a probability for TOS violations. I'm also bothered by the lock-in Google does with their @gmail.com email addresses they require for Google Accounts. Google Apps was a way out, even for normal users. Not anymore.

As recruter says, storage is a commodity. If google raises its prices you could easily move your files onto another service.

I beg to differ. My Dropbox subscription costs as much as 2 Starbucks coffees and gives me unlimited version and deletion history, plus Dropbox respects me enough to provide me with a Linux client.

Yes, I could move easily, but by supporting the company with monopolistic behavior, I may not have any options left.

You can use Drive on Linux via InSync: https://www.insynchq.com/

Having to use an unsupported third party tool doesn't speak well to the product. That's just begging for headaches a few months down the road when Google changes on the backend and InSync deletes or duplicates everything. Not InSync's fault, they just have no means of making sure Google doesn't break their tool.

Yeah, that is true. But I use Insyc on Windows because it is much more stable than the default drive app and supports symbolic links. So it isn't so much that Linux support is bad as it is that Drive support is bad.

Since Google internally uses Linux on desktop extensively, Linux Drive client is going to be released soon — they need it themselves.

They have an internal Linux client.

Which makes me unsure we will ever see one released externally, it must be the support cost that holds them back. Internally, they only have to support one distribution (their own) and some very smart users.

AFAICT Google internal Linux is pretty much a customized Ubuntu. If a Linux desktop client has a target market, users of Ubuntu + other Debian flavors represent most of it.

Not to mention your files are not stored exclusively online as with Google's Drive. Unless, of course, you're willing to jump through a few hoops in Google's case.

Furthermore, I get the impression there's an increasing fear of becoming a false positive on Google, therefore losing all of your data somewhere in the cracks of the Goog, with basically zero recourse.

'Dropbox' and 'respect' in the same sentence - funny.

You're suggesting that Google is going to charge for gmail and/or G+? That seems highly unlikely to me. Also for "Apps for Your Domain" they already do charge if you want more than one account.

My Google Apps account has 10 free accounts, because that's what they gave you for free initially.

People also don't remember that Google Storage was like 10 times cheaper prior to Drive, which is why I was initially backing up my photos in Picassa. Well, not anymore.

At least they kept their old plans for existing customers. Of course, upgrading means no more cheap storage.

They already raised the price for storage. But at least they kept the old plans for existing customers. I pay $5 per year for 20 GiB.