this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Ok, so I think the timeline is, he signed up for an unlimited storage plan. Over several years, he uploaded 233TB of video to Google's storage. They discontinued the unlimited storage plan he was using, and that plan ended May 11th. They gave him a "60 day grace period" ending on July 10th, after which his accouny was converted to a read only mode.
He figured the data was safe, and continued using the storage he now isn't really paying for from July 10th until December 12th. On December 12th, Google tells him they're going to delete his account in a week, which isn't enough time to retrieve his data... because he didn't do anything during the period before his plan ended, didn't do anything during the grace period, and hasn't done anything since the grace period ended.
I get that they should have given him more than a week of warning before moving to delete, but I'm not exactly sure what he was expecting. Storing files is an ongoing expense, and he's not paying that cost anymore.
Where does it say he quit paying? I have a Google account in read-only mode from about the same time period, and they keep charging me for it.
They discontinued the unlimited storage plan, so he can't still be paying for the unlimited storage. I'm not a big fan of Google's "I'm not seeing a return yet, better kill this product" approach, but it has been their MO for a long time. I think by now everyone doing business with them knows who they are.
I realize that, but they don't offer a read-only plan either. He's been paying for something, whether it's an official plan or not. If they sent an email saying that you can keep your data in read-only mode, and he kept paying the bill, they should've stuck with that.
I do realize it's Google and they can't be trusted to not fuck this up, but everyone is talking like this guy was just expecting Google to keep letting him access his data without paying a bill. The email they sent me basically said that I can keep paying my bill, and they'll keep my data, but I can't add any new data until I get under the quota. This is a plan that they offered to these people.
It is their customary response when a person quits the service, the plan is no longer offered etc that the data remains in read only mode for an unspecified period of time during which they do not any longer take payments for the service. This happened previously to people who exceeded the limit for Gmail free storage too. 15GB of storage free with a Gmail account but if you exceed that (say had Google One and exceeded that and then canceled your Google One subscription) your files wouldn't automatically be deleted.
Actually, I just read one of my emails from Google about their change from drive storage to Google one storage. It claims if I exceed my storage limit for up to two years my entire account will be deleted, not just my files. Effective June 1, 2021. I have a consumer account, but I'm assuming there is an equitable set of policies for gsuite/business users.
https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9312312?hl=en#:~:text=If%20you're%20over%20your,Forms%2C%20and%20Jamboard%20files).