The software giant already decreased the free allocation of OneDrive from 15 GB to 5 GB earlier this year. As reported by German site Deskmodder.de, Microsoft has now started to also limit the amount of data each OneDrive user can share with other people.
When you reach a certain sharing limit, OneDrive will prompt the following message:
“You have recently reached the limit for approvals. Some people may not be able to access your shared items . Try to share with fewer people, or sharing fewer large files.”
Microsoft announced in 2015 that it would remove its 100 GB and 200 GB plans and offer only a paid plan of 50 GB. This would be priced at $1.99 per month, which is twice the amount that Apple charges its users for iCloud storage.
OneDrive paid plans
The plans that are now available for OneDrive users are the Free, Basic, Personal, and Home plans. The Free plan offers 5 GB of space. The Basic plan offers 50 GB and is priced at $1.99 per month. The personal plan offers 1 TB for one user and costs $6.99 per month while the Home plan offers 1 TB each for 5 users at $9.99 per month.
As critics point out, there’s nothing wrong with Microsoft providing their service for a fee; what’s distasteful is that they do not provide notice prior to the introduction of limitations.
Zach Epstein of BGR Media also points out that,
“As cloud storage continues to get cheaper and cheaper for service providers, Microsoft has decided to remove much of the value from its own consumer offering.”
What effects these limitations will have on Microsoft have yet to be seen. It has also yet to be seen whether these increased limitations would enable Microsoft to gain more paying subscribers for OneDrive.
Mega Uploads gives you 50GB of cloud storage for free. Thank you very much!
I doubt they get more paying custormers… Sounds like Google has some people headed there way for free storage!
Still, the OneDrive subscription prices are much cheaper than Dropbox. And Dropbox doesn’t have a family plan, which gives OneDrive a strong advantage. And while I agree that MSFT could do a much better job communicating this business decision to its customers, it is ultimately a business decision based on ROI.
@Reina Marie Gonzales, I wonder how long you think MSFT should keep offering large amounts of free cloud storage to consumers without being able to recoup at least some of the cost of providing cloud servers? Please let me know, because I have a rental storage unit filled with stuff that I’d like to move to your house tomorrow to store it there for free. Oh, and I’ll need access to your house any time of the day or night to retrieve items as I need them. OK with you? 🙂