Google Is Rebranding Storage Plans As “Google One”
Frederic Lardinois (Hacker News):
Google is revamping its consumer storage plans today by adding a new $2.99/month tier for 200 GB of storage and dropping the price of its 2 TB plan from $19.99/month to $9.99/month (and dropping the $9.99/month 1 TB plan). It’s also rebranding these storage plans (but not Google Drive itself) as “Google One.”
Going forward, you’ll also be able to share your storage quota with up to five family members.
[…]
That access to live experts — not some barely functional AI chatbot — comes with every Google One plan, including the $1.99/month 100 GB plan.
[…]
It’s worth stressing that the existing free quota of 15 GB will remain.
I think this article is missing the bigger picture—this isn’t about storage. This is Google trying to copy the success of Amazon Prime.
They’re going to try to unify lots of different benefits under a single, high-value subscription. The storage plans and priority support are just the first benefit they’ve tied to the subscription.
Previously: The Missing iCloud Storage Bump.
Update (2018-05-15): John Gruber:
So Google is now ahead on the free and $1/month tiers — but not by much — and is only matching Apple at the other tiers. I would think Google would want to kick Apple’s ass here.
