Microsoft have announced in the OneDrive Blog that they are going to seriously limit the amount of storage offered through the OneDrive service as of early 2016.
Essentially, most OneDrive users have enjoyed free storage of up to 15GB, which is great.
However, this will be dropped to a measly 5GB of storage early in 2016.
The current $1.99/month 100GB storage plan is also going to be reduced to just 50GB.
The unlimited camera roll storage for all photos taken using a Windows Phone/Lumia will disappear altogether!
I encourage you to read the full blog here, which will help soften the blow (anyone using up to 15GB will have at least 12 months to reduce their storage or redeem a free, one year Office 365 subscription which includes 1TB of storage.
All of this smells of "freemium".
Microsoft have said for many months now that Windows 10 will be the version that a generation grows up with, and that whilst it would be free (for many users), they would introduce pay-per-use for certain elements of the entire software package.
Everyone's favourite Windows game, Solitaire, can be downloaded for Windows 10, but has horrified players by injecting advertisements into the game. Purchasing the game removes these adverts.
This move to reduce useable storage from OneDrive looks to be the first major way in which Microsoft intends to force Windows users to fork out for lots of its services.
Ok, $1.99 a month doesn't sound like a lot for 50GB of storage, but Google offers 15GB for free with their Google Drive cloud storage option, and 100GB for $1.99 a month.
Given that the world has moved away from Internet Explorer in favour of Google's Chrome browser, the world is a very different place from the one that Microsoft believe we live in.
In daily life, I use a variety of cloud storage options, but GDrive and OneDrive are my favourites.
I've invested in the Windows ecosystem after Android simply became too complicated(!) to use, and I do like Windows Phone, even with its many limitations. So, to discover that my various Lumia phones and tablets are about to lose the ability to access all of my digital content is a big blow.
The removal of the Camera Roll unlimited upload feature is a big deal.
Google Photos launched recently and has made me jealous of Android users.
Most of my photos are already backed up with Google, so to have Microsoft pull this feature means that I'm even more reliant upon my OneDrive storage limit.
I love my music. I have a huge music collection (which is mostly awful, really) and this is synced and available on my Android devices courtesy of Google Music, which offers free, unlimited storage of all of my music.
OneDrive doesn't even come close to this, as I have to manually (and painfully slowly) upload my music to the relatively new OneDrive music folder.
Microsoft, haven't you heard? The future is in cloud storage.
Most services are going cloud-based (for better or worse), and it's what customers expect these days.
Yes, I can bang a 128GB microSD card into my phone, but I can't be arsed to plug my phone into my PC to download my music to it.
If you have several phones and/or devices, you want things to sync so that they are there, ready and waiting - Nobody wants to go back to USB cables, booting up their PC once a week and downloading photos and uploading music.
Ten years ago, this was the norm. Five years ago, it was uncommon. In 2015, customers want things to work properly and sync, not manually copy and move files around their devices using cables and cards!
Microsoft, you want your next generation of customers to rely on your services. What part of massively limiting their storage makes you think that they will choose Windows over Google or IOS?
Microsoft's Lumia phones are struggling at 2% of all smartphone sales, and this figure is likely to drop as the sales of Lumia devices has dropped around 58% last quarter.
BlackBerry is trying with their PRIV Android slider, but Microsoft just don't seem to realise that flogging a few cheap and very capable handsets doesn't mean that everyone wants to ditch their 'droids and sign up for a Lumia phone with 5GB of online storage.
This reduction in free OneDrive storage, combined with the limitations of Windows Phone is enough to make me reconsider my switch from Android to Lumia.
I miss my music. It's all there waiting for me on my one remaining Android phone.
I have three Lumia phones, one of which is redundant.
I don't want to return to Android, as I find it is now very un-user friendly (double taps and swipes are needed for actions that should only need one prod).
But, Microsoft is forcing me to choose whether I want a dumbphone that syncs my contacts and calendar (Lumia), or do I return to Android and put up with a confusing and inefficient interface and woeful memory/battery management?
I guess that I have a year to decide.
