Microsoft yesterday surprised many by going back on its promise to provide “unlimited” OneDrive storage to subscribers of Office365 and cutting down the free cloud storage it offered new users by up to 84%. Citing misuse by a small subset of OneDrive users, the company not only went back on its “unlimited” storage pledge to Office365 users who will now be limited to just 1 terabyte but also scaled down the 15 GB storage it gave for free users to 5 GB and removed the extra redeemable 15 GB Camera Roll offer. Those users are now up in arms and are petitioning the company to reconsider its tough stance on the matter.
A new petition posted on change.org that already has slightly over 2,000 signatures asks the company to keep its word to the many loyal OneDrive users and just crack the whip on the few who have been abusing the service’s generous offering.
Another petition on the OneDrive user voice forums already has close to 20,000 votes.
It is unlikely that Microsoft will just make an about turn on the matter but such user outrage may probably lead to some slight changes.
While the new changes will unlikely affect those not abusing the system and are enjoying their Office365 subscription, they make OneDrive less attractive to new users as it used to be since it previously had a generous offer while at the moment the 5 GB it offers is a far cry from the 15 gigabytes those who sign up for a Google account get for use with Google services including Drive, Photos and Gmail.
