Are Cloud Storage Prices on the Rise?

Today, there is an essential question on the cloud storage market: are cloud storage prices on the rise, or are they going down? There seem to be arguments pointing to these facts, so which should we trust? If you look at the big picture, it may seem that the subscription prices are dropping. However, that does not necessarily translate to lower prices per gigabyte?

What are the prices of cloud storage services today? What's the best price you can find and what is the worst one? More importantly: have these prices gone up in the last year? Conversely, has the number of gigabytes for the money gone down? We'll be trying to answer all of these questions here.

Rise and Fall of Cloud Storage Prices

We're going to start with that last question. Quite recently, one good example of this has been Microsoft's consumer cloud OneDrive. The cloud storage services in Houston that comes in stock with Windows versions 8, 8.1, and 10 has been pushed by the IT&C giant forever (literally August 2007). Back then, it was named Windows Live Folders. It did not carry long for the first name change to occur. By May 2008, we had a pretty stable service in SkyDrive, providing users with 5 gigabytes of free cloud storage.

Later on, however, the service jumped to 25 GB, then back to 10 GB (with various options for students, Windows users, and past users). Then, a complicated lawsuit with BSkyB resulted in the name we know today – OneDrive. Along with the rebranding came another limit for the free service – 15 GB. The premium users still got 1TB of free storage until October 2014, when all Office 365 payers got unlimited storage. That didn't last since, in November of the following year, the 1TB limit was reinstated. Furthermore, just now, Microsoft has reduced their consumer cloud's free storage to just 5GB. So until the end of this year, millions of users have saved their (up to) 10GB elsewhere.

The results? Uproar. About 70.000 people were outraged when Microsoft announced the latest changes in November 2015. Yet, Microsoft's OneDrive is only a small example of a more complex issue. Its younger, brawnier brother, Azure, also upped its prices beginning August 1, 2015. On the other hand, another contender in the corporate cloud services market, IBM, cut its prices on July 2, 2015.

Bitcasa changed its policy and started on May 20; it will only provide its services to corporate users, discontinuing its consumer cloud storage services in Dallas, Texas. That means that one of the most expensive cloud storage services (for which people paid $10.00 per month!) and with whom thousands of users had free plans (which included 5GB free) would go off the market. If I was one of the people who used their free services, I would feel disrespected. Moreover, if I were one of the people who paid a monthly subscription, I would feel downright cheated.

However, what is we (presumed cloud storage know-it-alls) to understand from this constant shift in cloud storage prices and limits?

A Question of Inconsistency

We can see this by doing a quick Google search. If we look for cloud storage prices increasing, we will find reputable sources arguing to that extent. Likewise, if we searched for cloud storage prices decreasing, we would come across articles arguing the latter. This goes well with the trend we've touched upon earlier: cloud storage prices and offers are a modern Wild West of the IT&C world. Some rise, some fall, some keep steady only to go off the radar entirely later on.

While changes are welcome, and nowadays, the rule of law in the internet world, we can't keep but feel a bit conservative to this approach of changing the rules of the game on every corporate whim. The results, in the long run, are against the consumer. For example, as a regular user of consumer-oriented cloud storage services, I'm not keen on moving my files from one provider to the other just because one of my current cloud storage providers has decided to cut 150 GB off of my plan.

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As a rule, we can now distinguish four trends in cloud storage computing:

• A company raises the subscription cost but also increases storage space.
• A company decreases the price of its service but also decreases storage space.
• A company increases the subscription plan and decreases storage space.
• A company decreases the price but increases storage space.

These four decisions stand at the base of all cloud storage companies. They apply to both business cloud solutions as well as consumer cloud solutions. The first case usually happens when a company decides it can no longer support so many users. The second case means the company realizes that the cloud servers are becoming unstable, so a decrease in user-allocated space is in order. The third case is the boldest one and generally means that the company is going through difficult times. Finally, the fourth case is the most user-friendly one but is becoming increasingly rare.

The problem of increasing cloud storage prices is far more complicated than this. Still, instead of changes in prices and plans, we would propose some other tactics so that companies can get around difficulties and complications:

• Rule out subscription price changes and storage space changes. Significantly both simultaneously, this process will undoubtedly change the customer's perspective on the service. If the service is also changing plans against consumer interests, the result will be a decrease in public perception.
• Prevent cloud storage exploits. Accept it or not, one of the most common reasons for companies' decreasing storage space rests in the exploits done by consumers. A shocking amount of people use cloud services as places for their movie collections, for humongous video files, and use the cloud folders as specific folders on their computers. This causes an incredible load for the company hosting the files. Still, why not find a way to prevent such exploits instead of punishing all the users for the mischiefs of some?
• Add highly affordable plans. Many people would like to up their cloud storage by even a few gigabytes – why not give them the option to personalize their cloud storage size and plan? This could mean profit for the company and an extremely convenient system for some users who don't feel like paying for 100GB but want about half of that.

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