
Google One - binaryanomaly
https://one.google.com/about
======
spyckie2
"Google One" suffers from designer in a box syndrome.

It's probably a great internal name - hey, we've been providing storage for
photos, email, docs, drive, and more, for over a decade, and we've finally
integrated that storage into one space, so let's call it Google one! It's a
great name - simple and powerful, symbolizes the effort and direction we've
taken in the past 5-10 years of integrating our consumer, day to day products.

However, outside of the Google box, no one understands or cares what they've
been doing. "Google one" sounds like... nothing. "What is it???" is an
extremely appropriate response.

Maybe in the future it will come to symbolize all the services of Google,
available in one centralized location, allowing for future consumers to easily
access all of google services without separate pay schemes, storage, or other
infrastructure, and make it a 1 stop shop for your services needs, common or
obscure.

But right now, the copy and landing page are way off the messaging mark.

~~~
will_brown
It’s also a straight rip off of a name from Microsoft...who produces the
product _Xbox One_

Not unlike how Google became alphabet which seems influenced by *Amazon A to Z

~~~
jm547ster
Strange analogy, surely it would have to be ripping off a product called
‘Microsoft One’

~~~
will_brown
Well it’s not an analogy. It’s just stealing a product name from a competitor,
it really doesn’t matter if the products aren’t in the same space.

If Google created Google Windows and the product wasn’t an OS, it’s still a
rip off right?

It’s one thing when it’s Apple/google maps because it’s a generic and
descriptive mark, but One? Should have just gone full stop Google Windows.

~~~
toupeetape
If we are going down this road, Microsoft copied HTC, who not only had a
product called "One" but also ones called "One S" and "One X"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_S](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_S)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_One_X)

~~~
will_brown
Ok...I’m no MS fanboy.

But MS OneNote was released right around the same time.

But let’s be serious Google spent millions to brand/launch this, and it’s got
to be embarrassing that either: a. None of the yesmen thought to speak up and
say hey should we really use a name MS uses for a bunch of their products (One
Note, Xbox One, One OS, One Guide); or b. Straight ripped it.

~~~
joshuamorton
Android One is 4 or 5 years old.

Companies have been naming things with "one" since forever.

------
malux85
Consolidation of the services is nice, but I feel like this is just getting
creepier and creepier.

It’s like “put your entire digital existence onto our platform” Oh and by the
way took “don’t be evil” out. Now give us all of your data, look at this
beautiful UI!

Sorry Google, I don’t trust you anymore, I used to love you, it used to be
about the ideals and ideas, but now avarice has possessed and consumed you.

No thanks.

~~~
kyrra
To quote Google's code of conduct as it exists today:

> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t
> right – speak up!

[https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-
conduct/](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/)

Media headlines from the time gave the impression that it was removed, which
was absolutely false.

~~~
auslander
It was _effectively_ removed.

1\. Moving from top of the doc to very bottom of multi page doc, after things
like Trade Controls.

2\. Change of first party imperative to third party - _you_ remember, not _we_

~~~
joshuamorton
Are you suggesting that the conclusion of a document isn't an important part
of it?

I'd argue that the last sentence is more prominent than anything that isn't in
the first paragraph.

And who is "we" if not "you" in your second sentence? That's an employee code
if conduct.

------
floatingatoll
Their support site is far more valuable than the landing page.

From the main support index at
[https://support.google.com/googleone/](https://support.google.com/googleone/)
here are various tidbits of useful content that the surrounding HN comments
wished for (sorry, none describe the "expert help" available):

"Get Google One":

[https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9004013](https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9004013)

> With Google One, you get more storage, help from experts, and extra member
> benefits. You can share your membership with up to 5 family members.

"How your existing storage works with Google One":

[https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9004014](https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9004014)

> You'll get storage through your Google One membership, which will become
> your new storage limit. You'll no longer buy storage through Google Drive.

"Claim a Benefit":

[https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9003266](https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9003266)

> Google One hotel deals depend on the day, time, and other factors. There
> might not be a deal for every hotel search.

[https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9080668](https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9080668)

"Learn where Google One is available":

> Create or join a family; Use Google Play Family Library; Subscribe to the
> Google Play Music family plan; Use a family calendar

~~~
tmoravec
How on Earth are hotel discounts related to cloud storage?

~~~
aaronharnly
Yeah, the hotel benefits creep me out. At first glance, it’s an iCloud-like
storage plan, fine. But reading more and finding the hotel benefits makes me
think “oh right, Google wants to track everything I do online and offline and
sell my info to advertisers.”

~~~
dmix
Yep it creates a direct connection between a cloud service and what you type
in Google search box. That... seems strange. It make it sound like a
repository for all of your data/activity on all Google services not just, you
know, the data you upload to their cloud service.

------
projectramo
Easy with the criticism folks. This is just the first version. All the
confusion will disappear with Google One 2.0

~~~
tfeldmann
I'll wait for Google One 2.3

~~~
tremblane
Is that the release where it's specialized for certain groups? Like, "Google
One 2.3 for businesses"

~~~
snaky
Well, it's still better than "Google One 2.3 Tab S3 Plus 10.1 (EU ver), with
stylus"

------
arbitrage
Hey Google ... I know you're here, looking for how this is going to go over.

It seems like a nice idea. I'm not on board with any new Google platform
unless I have some sort of assurance that you're just not going to kill this
off in two years, or let it suffer a slow death of neglect and attrition.

Thanks, but you need to grow up a bit, Google.

~~~
dmix
This isn't some side project like Wave that they'll cut off. It sounds like a
pretty core business. If anything it will get renamed and take on a different
form in a couple yrs, but I doubt they'd ever stop offering a cloud service
like Drive.

But still, this is a very valid point. It's hard to trust any Google service
and it's risky to make any significant investment of time structuring your
life around them. This is why I don't use Google Music anymore. I invest far
too much time into my playlists and music collections to trust them.

~~~
microdrum
I wouldn't be so sure that they won't cut it off.

For example, they have already removed the marketing page that people here are
making fun of: [https://imgur.com/a/xsF1ZX3](https://imgur.com/a/xsF1ZX3)

~~~
dmix
Ha, amazing. Not only are they bad at it, they are thin-skinned too.

------
gamegoblin
Does the pricing make sense to anyone? 2TB is is $10/mo but 20TB is $200/mo.
That means on a per-TB basis, the bigger plan is 2x as expensive. And then the
30TB is 2x as expensive as 20TB.

Aren't things usually _cheaper_ when you buy bulk?

~~~
bad_user
Not necessarily. Many people pay for 2 TB without actually needing 2 TB. I
currently pay for Dropbox Pro, which has 2 TB of space available, but I'm only
using 300 GB. I'm pretty sure that at this point people going over 500 GB are
a tiny minority.

When you pay for 30 TB on the other hand, you probably need it, so their
actual cost might be reflected well in that price. This is basically the long
tail effect, so when you optimize the price for the majority, price increases
are not linear.

~~~
aaaaaaaaaab
Lol, I would just buy multiple 2 TB subscriptions from different accounts.

~~~
comboy
Services usually offer convenience. If you don't care about it then you can
already register on tons of sites with multiple accounts and get vast amounts
of free storage.

This and they have been working on making many accounts hard for some time
now.

~~~
nolok
> This and they have been working on making many accounts hard for some time
> now

I disagree with that.

The only "hard" part is stuff that absolutely makes sense during the creation
part if you're making several: captcha, not allowing the same phone number to
be the recovery for more than ~10 accounts, etc ... It's all very obvious
protection against spam/mass registration, and if you are an actual person it
takes only a few minutes to get around.

And if you go for paid accounts, all of those limits cease existing.

But beside that, once you have the accounts, it's all very friendly, the multi
login where you don't even have to logout / log in other account / logout
again / relog in first account, account delegation so you can have a master
account with automatic access to others, library (apps, photos, ...) sharing,
and all of that is on the free accounts !

It might be far from perfect, but compared to the other big ones Google is
very friendly to multi-accounts users.

~~~
bad_user
You can just register a GSuite Business account, with unlimited storage.

They have a fine print that says you need at least 5 users in your account or
something, otherwise they limit you to 1 TB.

However they are not enforcing that limit and on /r/DataHoarder/ you can see
people with dozens of TB stored without issues. And even if they start
enforcing it, if you pay for multiple accounts it would still be pretty cheap
and you don't get this multi-account management overhead.

------
bmiranda
For a moment I thought it was going to be another chat app.

Instead it's... something? A one sentence description at the beginning of the
page wouldn't hurt...

~~~
shpx
Compare with [https://www.dropbox.com/](https://www.dropbox.com/)

~~~
bad_user
Is Dropbox supposed to be a better example? I find their homepage horrible.

" _Dropbox is a modern workspace_ "

" _Keep everything organized without breaking your flow_ "

I don't understand why these companies feel the need to describe their
services in this way.

~~~
callalex
Because valuation of a software company doesn't come from the products they
offer, nor the current user base with credit cards on file. It comes from a
perceived potential growth/platform/network effect so all of these companies
have to pretend that they will someday be a panopticon that commands your
entire life in order to keep that sweet VC money flowing in even if they just
repackage s3 with a nice client.

~~~
rrdharan
Neither Dropbox nor Google is particularly concerned with courting VC money.

~~~
callalex
You're right. I should have just said "investor money"

------
ryandvm
> You're currently signed in to your G Suite account. Switch to your personal
> Google Account to upgrade.

Ugh... Google never misses an opportunity to shit on its most ardent
supporters - the people with personal G-Suite domains.

~~~
NiekvdMaas
Very true, this is the case among many of their products. For example Google
Home is not fully working on G Suite accounts, ridiculous.

~~~
roganartu
I had to switch back to Spotify a while ago to give my wife access to the
premium I was already paying for via the family plan because Google Play Music
doesn't support family plans for gsuite accounts.

If they addressed this issue I would probably consider consolidating Dropbox,
Spotify, and maybe some other stuff into a single Google One subscription but
I suppose grandfathered free gsuite accounts are a low priority for these
things.

------
sharmi
Google One = Google Drive + more space + Customer Service for around $2 a
month.

Customer Service is not called Customer Service but Google Experts. What does
this mean for actual service?

The thing I like/jumps out for me is no compressing of images. That is one of
the reasons I decided to go with Backblaze for backup. I would still stay with
backblaze as I am not so confident about Google keeping the product around.

"Your stuff, anywhere". I have managed to setup a upload workflow for
Backblaze on my linux machine without going through a browser. Not sure if it
is possible in Google One drive. Browsers crash/freeze at the most importune
moments. Then I need to restart the upload and pray. There is no way to say
upload only the diff (atleast as far as I remember). The extra upload just
means increased cost.

Still somewhere, someone in Google has finally listened(?) to the community
and heard that customer support is needed. This is an excellent step in the
right direction, I suppose.

~~~
ahofmann
> I have managed to setup a upload workflow for Backblaze on my linux machine
> without going through a browser.

Would it be possible for you to share your way of doing this? I would be very
interested in B2 access without browser.

~~~
codegladiator
rclone supports B2

[https://github.com/ncw/rclone](https://github.com/ncw/rclone)

------
zwaps
There is no special privacy policy, in other words, if you upload your "whole
life" to there, as they suggest, then your whole life is owned by Google and
they can do whatever they want with that data, as you signed over all the
rights.

I mean, I use online storage for my family pictures, my important documents
etc. etc, and so the minimum requirement is that it is encrypted and the
company contractually agrees not to snoop, data-mine or even sell that data.
Google basically tells you they will do all of that, tied to the most invasive
unique ID except than maybe facebook.

Why would anyone actually do that? That's just a disaster waiting to happen...

~~~
dwild
Encrypt your data yourself and don't trust any cloud provider to do it for
you. You can only trust yourself.

~~~
bassman9000
That's the complain: they could do it, and be liable for it, if they wanted,
and still be profitable.

------
pstuart
That landing page was too busy and did a weak job at selling what "one" was if
it's really more than a cheaper drop box.

Expert access for $1.99/mo? Huh?

~~~
PurpleRamen
Well, poor customer-service is a longstanding complain about google. Maybe
with GOne you now get some real human who takes care of your complain, before
they ban your account for violation of what their AI Overlord told them.

~~~
netsharc
Hah, GOne.

In the near future, 2 people are on GChat, I mean Hangouts, I mean Duo, I mean
Allo, I mean FB Messenger. And one of them is one of those people that can't
use the shift key:

"Where did you put the pictures from our trip?"

"oh, gone"

"What do you mean they're gone?!!!!?"

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Pardon this low quality comment but I must “hehehe”.

------
neverminder
So looking from a single private user's perspective: Google One has best
pricing, but no Linux native client and Dropbox has Linux native client and no
flexible pricing.

~~~
pqs
I don't understand why they won't develop a client for Linux. Is it that
difficult? Maybe the code could be also useful for Chrome OS and I guess many
Googlers use Linux, so it would be useful for them too.

I stick with Dropbox for the Linux support. It is fantastic. It works on
servers, with no GUI, so I can easily sync stuff from my Windows Laptop and my
Linux server, where I perform scientific stuff.

~~~
lugg
Linux is something like 2% market share.

We're also the only set of users that will actually saturate the oversold
storage while still burning through that $2.50 worth of customer service with
a single question prefaced with "hi, I run Linux."

------
acdha
You'd think an advertising company would be better at, well, advertising. All
of the listed benefits at the top of the page are either things everyone has
already been using with the exception of full-quality photos, which was
previously available as a paid option with the same pricing, and unspecified
additional promotional features.

It seems like the main improvements are adding family plans to match Apple and
having presumably not-chatbot support but that requires scrolling a long way
down the page.

~~~
jeremy7600
Advertising service.

------
zuck9
Previous thread from 7 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17067168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17067168)

------
xnb11
This page looks like [http://hooli.com/](http://hooli.com/) . Google does seem
to have a sense of humor.

It is amazing how Google screws up any UI or explanatory pages apart from
search. I guess common sense isn't taught in CLRS.

------
jhanschoo
For those wondering, this is Google Drive's paid plans, but it has undergone a
rebranding to emphasize Google's ecosystem. I can think of some reasons why
this might be a good idea:

1\. Your storage in Google Drive is actually not used only by what's on
GDrive, but includes your emails and Google Photos. So it is more correct to
deemphasize the connection to GDrive.

2\. This is a good first step to unify Google's paid B2C services that it may
want to offer, especially since G+ is being discontinued.

------
Insanity
Kind of related, I was recentl thinking about making some backups of valuable
(emotionally speaking) things like wedding pictures.

Currently they are backed up on my local machine and my server, but was
considering cloud options. My wife does use Google Drive (paid account w/
Chromebook) but I don't feel that comfortable with Google things.

Does anyone have good alternatives that perhaps respect privacy? :)

~~~
mikro2nd
With Google -- and especially considering recent history -- I be worrying
about when this product is going to be end-of-lifed.

~~~
therealdrag0
If they OEL a storage platform, surely they'd let you export it fairly simply,
and you can transfer it to another provider.

------
malchow
I pay $5/yr (a legacy plan that will disappear if I ever have a billing
information imperfection) for 40GB Gmail storage, which is all I need. This
announcement reminds me that Google has no respect for pricing, SLA, data
mining transparency, consumer terms stability, support ("Google
Expertsbutprobablynotouremployees!") or consistency. The future is easy to
see: "Drive is now One!"

So this announcement is the thing that will finally get me to export all of my
data and leave Gmail for personal use altogether. Congratulations, One Team!

~~~
tln
You have a nice rent controlled storage offering and you're leaving because
Google is adding a new service? Or are they evicting you from your old plan?

Really don't follow how this announcement lacks respect for pricing or sla.

------
imgabe
I have a fair amount of stuff on Google drive and I would have liked to
consolidate there, but the lack of a Linux client was a deal breaker, so I'm
stuck with Dropbox.

Not that Dropbox is bad. It would be nice to have things in one place only,
but maybe it's better to not be completely dependent on one service.

~~~
elagost
Dropbox now only (officially) supports un-encrypted bare ext4 filesystems. If
you plan on using XFS, BTRFS, or even encrypted ext4, you're SOL with Dropbox.
[https://itsfoss.com/dropbox-linux-ext4-only/](https://itsfoss.com/dropbox-
linux-ext4-only/) NextCloud and a $5/mo VPS work great for me.

------
chucky
In what seems to be a standard move for Google these days, the page contains
no information about the product for me as it's not available in my area yet.
Would someone care to post that information?

~~~
ndnxhs
Its google drive but developed by a different team.

------
ChrisArchitect
what the hell -- this is like 7 months ago news/rolled out

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17067168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17067168)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079306)

------
_JasonE
Google One sounds like a device to me. I think it would be clearer to take the
existing "Google Family" service they already offer (of which Google One is
feature) and add "Shared expanded storage on Drive, Gmail, and more" as an
optional feature.

------
IgorPartola
Is Google just a prepetual exercise in branding? They create a slightly
different product, get it to popularity, kill it, announce a new brand to
replace it, rinse, repeat.

~~~
mtgx
How else would the people proposing and working on these things internally get
promotions?

------
whalesalad
Language wise this sounds like the Trojan horse that eventually becomes their
amazon prime as far as being a “one stop” membership. It’s disguised as
storage right now but seeing the bit about hotel deals... also prime ~ one...
hmm.

Why this wouldn’t also bundle things like YouTube red or google music proves
my hypothesis wrong though.

I just don’t know what the hell is going on at Google lately. What is their
strategy? What is their vision? Everything they do is so disjointed and
incongruent.

------
ronilan
Remember that billboard puzzle google put up in 2004?

I think this might be the same thing.

If you can figure out what Google One is you are a genius!

~~~
kowdermeister
Thank you.

------
brenschluss
Prediction: this will shut down in 2.75 years.

~~~
jasonvorhe
Why would it, though? It's not a new product, it's just Google Drive under new
branding and Drive has been around for about 5 years already. It's also a paid
service where they now even offer better customer support.

I don't get the "they'll shut this down anyways" sentiment in every Google
related submission on HN. It's getting tiresome.

------
shashankjain16
How significant would the revenue from these services? I mean, if it's quite
significant, doesn't it make sense to offer an "ad-free" plan where they do
not track the user and do not show them ads. Only a small portion of their
tracking user base would be affected and they would not lose many of the
privacy aware users as customers.

~~~
dwild
> doesn't it make sense to offer an "ad-free" plan where they do not track the
> user and do not show them ads.

They did try it with Google Contributor, but only for a short amount of time
to a limited set of users (US only). Now it changed to be for specific
websites only which is pretty absurd.

I believe they haven't move toward ad-free plans simply because it would
cannibalize their own product. They can sell ad space because they get ad view
from all type of consumer. If they can't reach theses consumers, they have
nothing to sell, thus will lose theses sales.

I think it's absurd though because it's the future and instead each website
will implements it (and some will implements it together) which will
cannibalize Google. Patreon is just the beginning.

~~~
shashankjain16
I think customer willing to pay to not to be tracked is not a customer for
them anyway. For example, I myself have adblockers installed, use Firefox with
tracking protection, use Duckduckgo as search and Outlook as email (this can
be debated). It's true that not everyone can go that far in protecting
themselves from tracking, but adblockers are quite common.

Web ad-platforms are different from traditional ad-platforms, like television,
because in latter you don't really have an option to skip/ignore ads.

------
onyva
Does anybody really trust google with any of their services? It’s here today
gone tomorrow.

~~~
dwild
It's just a rebranding of Google Drive. It's crazy the amount of people here
that believe it's a brand new product. Isn't there more user of Google Drive?
My account was simply "migrated" to Google One.

They added the client support, that's all.

------
amingilani
I'm confused. What is it? A storage bump? Paid support? A discount plan? A
consolidation of all these offerings from different places into _one_ home?

This is such a bad landing page. I have more questions than answers.

~~~
paxys
Why not actually read the page?

Google One includes

100 GB storage

Access to Google experts

Option to add your family

Extra member benefits

~~~
thefounder
Google experts?

~~~
ncr100
To help you Google? Lmgtfy.com?

Likely to help you back up and access your data, seriously.

------
bad_user
Google One is finally available in my country, although I was hoping for
YouTube Premium, which isn't available yet.

Things to note:

1\. Google's Drive File Stream is still not available for normal accounts,
only for GSuite — I wonder why, because Backup and Sync is pretty shitty, at
least on Macs

2\. GSuite Business costs per user about the same price as Google One's 2 TB
plan and you get essentially unlimited storage, Gmail on your own domain, a
better ToS

In other words, GSuite is a much better deal, the only annoyance for people
that are into Google Photos is that photos in your Drive won't appear
automatically in G Photos (not covered by GSuite, different ToS) ... but
that's probably a good thing :-)

So I'm wondering, for power users that would want this, why bother with Google
One at all?

~~~
adjkant
I think you answered your own question - it's not targeting power users.

IMO it's targeting a few groups:

\- Grandpa who wants to see all the family photos and is not completely behind
technically

\- Grandpa's kids who are tired of being tech support for him and also
probably have lots of photos they would happily store with Google

\- Generally, people 30-50 who want simple "just works" tech and probably will
use the hotel discounts

------
iamgopal
Wait for Google one Allo with desktop client, which will be neither compatible
with old Google one and also only support large files, but it automatically
recognise your neighborhood and suggest you to buy from nearby store.

------
iandanforth
I couldn't find anything about availability (24/7?), response times, or issue
escalation for their 'experts.' If I got locked out of my account, would I
still have access to an expert to help?

------
MithrilTuxedo
I just asked my girlfriend of several years to be in my family. We'll see how
this goes.

------
SheinhardtWigCo
This “One” thing is getting a bit tired.

~~~
Apocryphon
Agreed. It didn't even make much sense a few years ago with products like the
Xbox One or the HTC One. Heaven help us if Apple refreshes their Mac Pro as
the Mac One.

~~~
Nition
Call it the Mac Two and suddenly the whole market perceives you as one step
ahead.

------
abalos
My only guess is that large companies suffer from too much bureaucracy when it
comes to naming. As a result, you'll never get a phenomenal name, but you also
won't get a really bad name either. Odds are you'll get something within a
couple standard deviations of "normal" and end up with a name that's just kind
of... boring.

------
dbg31415
My experience with Google's Backup and Sync means I would never trust Google
again.

I put everything on Google's Backup and Sync... and was initially happy enough
with it as a replacement for Dropbox.

Then my laptop crashed.

When I went to restore, I was limited to copying files down 2 GB at a time.

Worse... the process didn't tell me that, I had to figure it out after doing a
few downloads and finding that not all my files made it. There was no warning,
no errors. I hit download on a folder, it came down "successfully" but when I
looked at the contents locally vs. what was on Google Drive it never matched
up.

Can't stress enough how shitty this was. I had to manually save everything and
manually check to make sure it all saved. I'm still not convinced I got it all
downloaded correctly. Took probably 100 hours of my time. Never a single error
message if you tried to download a folder that was bigger than 2 GB, but
behind the scenes it was truncating files.

------
wodenokoto
A lot of people are saying the page is really busy. Visiting on mobile
(Firefox) this is probably one of the quietest landing pages I've seen:

A logo

A headline

Two short sentences

A sign up box

A note saying that paying customers will eventually automatically be upgraded.

That's it.

No pictures. No movies. No backgrounds. No parallax. No nothing.

Did they completely change the landing page since this was posted 20 minutes
ago?

~~~
zyx321
Is the sign up box for a mailing list so you'll be informed when it becomes
available in your country?

For me (Germany, mobile Firefox) it's completely overladen with animations
that showcase all the wonderful file formats you can store on your cloud
drive.

~~~
wodenokoto
No, it does say anything directly along the lines of "get updated when
available in your region", but if you read between the lines, it could
definitely be understood that way, now that you mention it.

I'm visiting from Scandinavia.

------
Zenst
Interesting that it is available in only some EU member countries, but not all
of them. Oddly, not Ireland.

List of countries where Google One is available Argentina Australia Brazil
Canada France Germany India Israel Italy Japan Mexico Russia South Korea Spain
Taiwan United Kingdom United States

~~~
bad_user
Actually it's available in Romania too, I noticed that today, that list is
outdated.

------
chillydawg
Can I pay more to stop Google advertising to me and collecting my data? They
can keep their HDD space.

~~~
jstanley
Yes, you can buy your own hard disks and not use Google.

~~~
piyush_soni
This is actually a valid use case and some of my friends desire exactly that
from them - i.e., all Google's smarts, without the tracking part (for
individuals). I think they'll find a lot of customers willing to pay a good
amount for that.

~~~
kmlx
GSuite?

~~~
piyush_soni
I hoped it would be that coveted product, but there is not enough clarity on
that at least to me. Do they say somewhere that they do not track you at all
if you take their GSuite?

------
audiolion
Google One, and Google Drive.. why not just merge the products and call it
OneDrive?

------
eftpotrm
"Space for everything! Your life, uncompressed! Top standard tier, 200GB!"

OK, I'm a photographer. But I literally outgrew a 300GB drive about 10 years
ago, and genuinely shot nearly 100GB in _one week_ on a trip earlier in the
year. Heck, my music collection's over 100GB. (No, I don't stream. Too much
obscure stuff, too many low bit rate feeds.)

Those numbers. Bit basic. I remember the days when Google's storage offerings
were light years ahead of the competition and effectively infinite for most
uses.

~~~
freehunter
>for most uses

>100GB in one week

I'm willing to bet most users don't use 100GB per week of cloud storage. It
seems like your expectation of "effectively infinite for most uses" is still
true, you just don't fit the definition of "most uses".

~~~
eftpotrm
I will admit 100GB a week is an unusual case, I've certainly not replicated it
myself. But there'll be a _lot_ of people with half-decent cameras for which
200GB is nowhere near 'everything'.

------
dmix
Is there any new software released with this for syncing/uploading all of your
files to Google One?

Edit: looks like they only have a web app for desktop and only have an app for
Android, no iPhone support yet: [https://one.google.com/faq/google-one-
app](https://one.google.com/faq/google-one-app)

Without syncing like MEGASync or Dropbox (even if it's only one way uploading)
this is pretty useless as a central repository.

------
mongol
After Google Plus comes Google One

------
sccxy
Google OneDrive?

~~~
Matthias247
I thought that first. With the exception that they exactly leave the Onedrive
storage class (1TB, 60$/year) out. If you are happy with 200GB, the Google
offer seems to be a lot cheaper. If you need up to 1TB, you pay twice than for
Onedrive. Theoretically you can even count Office 365 Home as a 5TB, 90$
option, which makes it even yet cheaper. However that's a bit more of an
unfair comparison, since it would involve the hassle of using multiple
accounts (and I'm not even sure if the Onedrive app would allow that on a
single installation).

~~~
hawkweed
I think that microsoft did really good job with their Office 365 home package.

Each of the 6 accounts gets: \- 1TB for OneDrive \- Office licence \- 60mins
for Skype \- 50GB for Outlook

Initially I wanted to go with the Google Drive because I'm using Android, but
after trying android and mac one drive clients i decided to go with one drive.

------
ndnxhs
So now we are going to get 5 copy's of Google drive..

------
unixhero
Okay. Another product they will sunset after 5 3-8 years.

------
roland35
I have paying for Google Drive/One for a year now and having tried Dropbox and
Amazon Cloud, GDrive is the easiest for my family. It is seamless for us to
back up all camera and phone pictures from both Android and iOS and is much
faster and less buggy than Amazon.

I do agree with people's reservations about privacy and longevity with Google,
their products don't seem to last for long!

~~~
OafTobark
Google One hasn't been around for close to a year yet so I assume you were
using Google Drive specifically before Google One was officially released? My
experience was the opposite of this and because of this experience, I refuse
to pay for any Google services moving forward.

------
bad_user
How does sharing of space work?

Say if you get the 2 TB plan, will each family member get 2 TB, or will that 2
TB be shared between all family members?

------
mesozoic
Yeah it's confusing but give them a break it's their first try. Maybe they'll
make it make more sense by Google two.

------
TootsMagoon
Just a reminder. You are the product Google sells. This is a premium service
to make you a more premium product that Google will sell to advertisers. We
should all be looking at different (non advertising) models for the services
they are offering. Hyper-targeted advertising and all the risks associated
with it is not good for society.

~~~
mda
I hear this often but usually lacks explanation, can you elaborate?

~~~
blairbeckwith
I fly in to a rage now every time I hear this. It's become completely and
utterly meaningless. "If you're not paying, you're the product!" -> "If you're
paying, you're just a better product for them to sell!"

It might be true, but there exists not a single person on this site who hasn't
heard it, and it provides absolutely zero value.

It was never even true to start with. The act of paying for something in no
way has ever made you ineligible as a source of other revenue.

------
kylehotchkiss
I really wish Google would have clearly said whether they will or will not
monetize data inside Google One accounts. With my paid G Suite account for
personal use I have some confidence Google isn't monetizing my Gmail, Drive,
and hopefully Photos, but with Google One, I can't see the same policy written
clearly.

~~~
timdavila
If they're not very clearly stating the opposite, the answer should be assumed
to be yes they are monetizing it.

------
jimijazz
My personal approach to storage is to prescind as much from it as I can. I'm
constantly deleting old photos and media that I create, as I believe that I
will have less and less time to even see them again in the future, so I'm
trying to live as light as possible and keep only the 'prime' material.

------
Svoka
Name is terrible. So, Google One is only about storage. Google Music is
different subscription. I would laugh if google would make some Play Store
subscription and call it Google Everything. Then you'll have to get Google One
and Everything.

------
microdrum
What a joke. Now they have pulled the marketing page -- possibly because of
how hard we are laughing at them.

[https://imgur.com/a/xsF1ZX3](https://imgur.com/a/xsF1ZX3)

Every new storage product offered by Google serves mostly to remind people to
get their stuff off of Google.

------
seanhunter
The prize will go to the first person to build a full von Neumann machine
using Google One and Coke Zero.

------
falcor84
And yet again they don't care about gsuite users. I have a gsuite setup for
everyone in the family, for pretty much exactly the same needs that are
addressed by Google One, but apparently there's absolutely no way to get the
benefits of both.

~~~
gedy
I'm confident that's company politics and bonuses for launching the "new" at
play here.

------
jeisc
Will the current or future google censor be applied to your access of your
data?

If you have any copyrighted material in your data/content without a valid
proof of ownership or payment -> censored OR worse prosecuted and racketted to
pay?

------
izzydata
But can I use it as an image host like Dropbox public folders used to be? Can
it sync a folder from my computer like Dropbox does?

The actual amount of space is so trivial compared to my many terabytes of
storage so that is not a useful feature for me.

------
manigandham
It may be a good deal for the space but do not buy this for better support
because it is absolutely nonexistent. It takes about 48 hours to get the first
email reply and is the same team and capability as the free consumer services.

------
timdellinger
Some of the scariest words that occur when a radical new product is launched
are telling current customers of existing products "you'll be automatically
upgraded".

------
Jaruzel
I've just tried to share this link to a friend over WhatsApp. WhatsApp will
NOT show a link preview for it, like it does for all other URLs.

Is WhatsApp blocking link previews for Google services?

~~~
callalex
No, it's just a poorly constructed website that doesn't have any machine-
readable summary, and doesn't even conform to their own guidelines about
machine-readable summaries. At least the marketing page for this product gives
you a realistic impression of how the customer experience will be...

~~~
Jaruzel
I'm not sure about that. Even basic sites with only the 'title' tag set, still
create a popup in WhatsApp, albeit with just the title text (obviously).

------
darkstar_16
I still don't understand. What is Google One? Photos and Drive storage still
seems separate from each other. So, why is it called One? Have they just
changed the paid plans?

------
eximius
Hm, does this solve the 'consumer-level support' (or lack thereof) problem?

I can't tell if the experts are essentially human tutorials or if they can
actually escalate issues.

------
cbg0
Not sure what all the hate is about, I quickly figured out they were looking
to sell me more storage space, though I do admit the page is really busy.

------
lmedinas
For that price i would not mind to get a subscription if it would be fully
encrypted and a good messaging app unlike the hangouts and allo trash.

------
futurix
"One" \- sure sign of a branding failure.

------
ilikehurdles
Can someone explain to me why google really wants me to move my photos out of
Drive and into Google Photos? What’s in it for them?

~~~
catacombs
Everyone putting everything they own into one place will help Google acquire
more data about its users. It's fox asking all the hens to put their eggs in
one basket.

It's optional now. But, give it a few years, and no one will be allowed to use
Google services without all their stuff on One.

------
ohazi
Everyone is so busy asking "what even is this?" that they're forgetting to ask
the more typical question about a new Google product - "will this still be
around next year?"

~~~
jhanschoo
The primary benefit that this is based around (increased account storage
space) is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon.

~~~
mikro2nd
Your logic is sound, but is Google's? We all thought that a product based on
top of their already-necessary spidering of substantial portions of the web --
Reader -- was also unlikely to go away, and look what happened.

I think that Google have passed Peak Innovation, and now all they can see is
stuff other companies are doing and thrashing about going, "We ought to be
doing that, too." Check in with MS to ask how well that works.

------
pleasecalllater
What's the removal date for this service?

------
sigi45
That is launched for a while now.

What is new from that page?

------
fredsanford
Maybe it has something to do with one being the rough average number of
testicles in the human population?

------
illusiveworm
It baffles me that people willingly give their data to Google. Not only that,
but some pay for it too.

------
iamben
I pay 2 quid a month for extra Gmail storage (20gb) and nothing else... Does
this get rolled into that?!

------
ashelmire
Scrolled down the home page and have no idea what the product is. Is this a
rebrand of google drive?

------
digitalsanctum
It seems like Google always gets in it's own way and this is no exception.
They need to stop with this nonsense and bring back apps that are actually
useful like Google Reader and improving apps that folks use everyday like
Gmail and Google Maps. When is the last time one of these apps had a memorable
and compelling new feature?

------
sidcool
If I opt for Google One, does Google stop using my Drive contents for ad
targeting?

------
sensecall
I have almost no idea what the offering is here... can someone explain?

------
iamgopal
Just tell me it's encrypted and even we can not see your data.

------
tambourine_man
Flickery mobile page. Tap menu bar to scroll up doesn’t work.

------
CSMastermind
This is Google's version of Amazon Prime right?

------
buboard
Also consider Google Eye as a good candidate name,

------
hateful
(Google _Drive) + (One_ Drive) = (Google*One)

------
karmakaze
> One

The number of baskets to put all your eggs into.

------
Animats
Looking forward to "Google Plus One".

------
obilgic
Is this to compete with Amazon Prime?

------
Havoc
Is this something I can change my g suite to? Or is this a personal offering?

Would love the google play etc but need g suite forown domain email

~~~
alexcason
Looks like personal accounts only.

------
atomisonline
Nice, I can't wait to put everything on my One Drive....wait a minute...

------
kgwxd
Google OneDrive

------
OafTobark
A lot of people here have commented about their mistrust in Google and won't
use this service. I thought I'd add my two cents base on actual experience
with using Google One.

I signed up the day Google One became available since I had been looking for a
cloud storage solution. I downloaded their uploader client and began backing
up my files. I am sure the fact that it took over two weeks was a mix of my
own ISP upload speed and maybe some limitation on how much the client could
handle in terms of uploading files (I had just over half a TB to back up).

That said, the speed wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me was the stupid
client kept throwing me errors constantly telling me it couldn't upload
certain files (always random) and although it gave me an option to retry, I
could click retry a dozen times and it wouldn't matter, it'd simply fail over
and over again. My only option at this point was to skip uploading this file.
If this had been a few files, that wouldn't be an issue except this was easily
hundreds of files with no easy way to keep track of what successfully uploaded
and what didn't.

Worse, each time it failed, it interrupted whatever I was doing to pop up a
notification with the expectation of me having to select retry or skip. This
was insanely annoying. I could be doing something and a notification would pop
up and unless I respond, it would just sit there. Sometimes I'd be doing
something and the notification would interrupt what I am doing midflow.
Needless to say this was an abysmal experience.

I then tried contacting support wanting a refund and to simply cancel. First I
tried chat which connected relatively fast but it was obvious the person I
talked to didn't know what they were talking about. I then did phone support.
To their credit they called me back within an hour though it hung up on me
shortly after picking up so I then had to get them to call again and there
goes another hour.

Eventually, I did get to talk to a human being but felt I was talking to
someone who had very little knowledge about how anything worked. I had to get
the case escalated to get the service cancelled since the department that
handled that had no direct support.

After waiting about a week, I contacted support again and went through the
whole motion all the while finding out it seems like the case wasn't properly
escalated. Waited several more days and had to contact support again. It had
to be escalated again.

During this whole ordeal, I had already stopped the client, uninstalled it,
and removed any files I had uploaded.

After about another week, one day suddenly I accessed my Gmail to find a
glaring message at the top that read something to the effect of me being over
my storage limit and will soon be unable to receive any emails. I was pissed.

At this point they didn't contact me at all, I haven't seen any refund come
through, but my access to Google One was gone so I assumed I was cancelled.
But if I deleted all the files I previously uploaded, how could I be over the
limit?

The only conclusion I could come up with was any photos I took on my Pixel
(which came with unlimited photo storage) somehow was being read as non-Pixel
photos so my photo storage blew up. I had to forcibly set it to convert all
the images to the format that Google would allow that wouldn't be used against
my storage space and eventually after like 2-3 hours my Gmail no longer had
that glaring message that I may not receive messages due to being over my
storage limit.

Now I'm painfully aware I probably could have backed up all my photos and
delete them off Google Photos at this point but I was so exhausted and angry
that I just took the path of least resistance here. Eventually the refund came
through several days later but this was when I genuinely started to hate
Google for the first time.

Hope this helps anyone on the fence about paying for Google One, especially
with the expectation that you'll get support as if that'll be helpful.

I ended up going with a different cloud storage. World of difference. Never
going to trust Google for anything like this ever again.

------
jeklj
It’s nice that you can store photos and it’s nice that you can maybe actually
finally get support from them, but I don’t understand why those two things are
bundled together. Their product offerings are typically sort of baffling

