Digital Disconnect: Cloud, Cloud Everywhere, But Not A Byte To Spare

Storing your favourite images on the cloud is as good as having them with you for eternity, right? Well, NOPE!

Let’s dial the clocks back a couple of decades. Back when developing photo negatives was still a thing. We’d all head to our trusted “photo studios,” hoping against hope that our precious 36 photos (the maximum limit allowed in a single camera roll) will turn out okay, and not burnt due to overexposure or dark due to underexposure. God help that one person who’d have his eyes closed just when the photo was clicked. When the photos would come back developed, we’d happily paste them in our chunky photo albums and store them safely in our almirahs (or suitcases, in the curious case of my space-saving father) forever. 

Then came the age of digital cameras. Now, we needn’t restrict ourselves to just 36 photos from an entire trip. We were finally able to take hundreds of photographs (as much as the storage card would allow us), finalised the few dozen good ones, develop maybe some of them, and up in the storage they would go. 

While this particular technological advancement allowed everyone to not worry about running out of photo rolls, it sort of led to the present-age peculiarity, where even a hundred selfies in front of the same sunset seemed too little. But that’s a rant for another time.

Once we got hold of external hard disk drives and pen drives/flash drives that allowed us gigabytes — nay, terabytes — of data storage, it seemed nothing would ever stop us from storing as many photos and videos as we need. 

But, technological advancement never rests. Very soon, we all got word of this magical storage solution called ‘Cloud’. It truly seemed magical at first. You mean to say, all I need to do is create a free account, and store whatever amount of data we have and not even have to worry about buying a flash drive? Sign me up, already!

And so it was all hunky dory for a few more years. Photographers — professionals and amateurs alike — need never worry about storing their captures ever, as long as they had access to the Internet (and it helps that India has some of the lowest mobile data prices in the world). Or so we thought.

Enter the later part of the 2010s and we realised even these clouds have a storage limit. In 2016, Google decided to shut down its image-viewing-and-organising platform Picasa, leaving thousands of users utterly worried about their digitally stored albums. Sure, Google did allow users to migrate their albums to Google Photos, which was touted as the tech giant’s cross-platform always-online photos service. 

So, Our Photos Are Finally Safe Forever, Right? Well, Think Again 

In the case of Google, each account holder can access 15GB of online storage. Now, this 15GB is divided among Gmail, Drive, and Photos, including items such as images, videos, PDFs, Meet call recordings, and even the content of your Spam and Trash. 

If you go over the given quota, you will be restricted from uploading new files and you can’t back up files on Google Photos. Want to know the most worrisome bit? You won’t be able to send or receive mail via Gmail as well. 

You may now think, "Ho-hum, I don’t use my Google account at all, so at least my 15GB of content is safe forever." Well, hate to break it to you, but not really!

If you remain over your 15GB quote for two years or longer, Google says that it would remove all your content from Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive (including files on Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboards).

Sure, Google claims that it would give you a fair warning via emails and notifications before it removes all the data. However, just the fact that the service would remove all your data for being “over quota for two years” is a bit laughable.

My old (physical) family album, which comprises photos from my third birthday, is still stored safely in my dad’s handy suitcase for nearly three decades now, without any major concerns apart from the annual Diwali cleaning. 

Does this mean my dad is more capable than Google? Well, of course he is. But the actual answer is not so fantastical. 

Why Can’t Data Remain On The Cloud Forever?

We need to understand that cloud storage isn’t just some magical thing conjured by a Hogwarts witch but actually is just a collection of hard drives maintained by a service provider, like Google or Apple (iCloud). 

And, it may come as a surprise to you, but just like any other object on earth, computers and hard drives too are perishable and need to be replaced regularly. And with the rate users are increasingly going digital, the amount of data to be stored is also increasing at a breakneck pace. 

As per an article by CBT Nuggets, Google claimed back in 2020 that it had over 1.8 billion active Gmail users. That’s nearly 0.3 billion more people than the entire population of our country. 

Now, if we consider that each of these 1.8 billion users is using the 15GB minimum data limit, Google’s total data that needs to be stored comes up to roughly 27 billion gigabytes. It’s understandable how much energy would be needed to manage always-online storage dealing with that many gigabytes. And to manage the operations better, Google — and other cloud storage companies — will eventually need to delete inactive data.

Need More Bytes? Pay Up!

As is the case with several things in life, dishing out some extra cash will help you keep your cloud storage issues at bay. 

You could sign up for Google One, which offers storage expansion for your account, ranging from 100GB up to 5TB, starting from Rs 130 per month to Rs 1,625 per month. 

In the case of Apple users, iCloud offers a measly 5GB of free storage to each account holder. You can sign up for iCloud+, and expand your storage from 50GB to 2TB, starting from Rs 75 per month to Rs 749 per month. 

There’s no doubt that cloud storage is indeed present everywhere and does make storage and accessing digital files much easier and more instant. However, due to the needs (and greed) of big tech firms, we certainly have to be careful with our bytes. 

Digital Disconnect is an ABP Live-exclusive column, where we explore the many admirable advancements the world of tech is seeing each day, and how they lead to a certain disconnect among users. Is the modern world an easier place to live in, thanks to tech? Definitely. Does that mean we don’t long for things to go back to the good-ol’ days? Well, look out for our next column to find out. 

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