Mine, Mine! All Mine!!! mwoahahahahah!
"I have a cunning plan..." — Baldrick
Following my previous post regarding the paperless proposal for 2013, it would appear that companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple have this good heart and green thumb, respect the environment (allegedly) and offset carbon footprints on a daily basis. They entice you to use their Cloud services with the Drive, SkyDrive and iCloud. However they have been around for decades and, by a "strange" coincidence, are the biggest and richest companies in the world... with your money. What is in it for them with this new appeal for "going paperless", to "save trees"? What is the Masterplan? Because there is one, I can assure you!
It starts like this... you upload everything to The Cloud now... for FREE!!
For FREEEEEE??????!!! Sounds good to MEEEEEEEEE!!!
You have everything up there! Saved a lot of trees! Oooh.. bliss!
However... firstly, by reading the agreements of the 3 companies, you will notice that they use the same terminology regarding your data. If suddenly everything disappears from their storage, their liability is limited to a refund of paid services. If you pay nothing you get nothing. If you paid something for additional storage, you will get a refund of your last month. That's it... that's all.
Secondly, there is no mention whatsoever, in for instance the Google Terms of Service, of any duty of care regarding your FREE stored data. Ominously they state they "may add or remove functionalities or features, and may suspend or stop a Service altogether". All these companies have omitted any policy regarding future charges for these services... and that's the Plan.
Yes, they have been here for a while. In 2020 when we are all paperless (and defenceless), when paper forests have been reduced to 20% of the actual area we have today (meaning that 80% of paper forest trees have been wiped out, that's it for "saving trees"), when a ream of A4 Value paper in Tesco will rise from £3.50 to £40.00, then they will all come out with this statement:
Dear iCloud, Google Drive, Skydrive User,
It is with regret that we arrived to the conclusion that we can no longer supply our (iCloud, Google Drive, Skydrive) service free of charge, as we have done successfully in the past. The rising costs of data storage maintenance, energy, hardware and administration have led us to conclude that from 1 January 2020 your data storage with us will become a chargeable service. We have also been forced to review the pricing of our current additional storage plans.
We offer fantastic price plans that start at only £20.00 (or £2,000!!! they can charge you anything by then) per month for a whopping 5GB!!! storage. More price plans are available here.
You will be glad to know that part of your future payments on any chosen price plan will be allocated towards carbon offsetting. We hope that you will continue to use our services after that date.
We will be sad if you decide to leave us as we think we are the best service provider available. We thank you for the trust you had with us in the past and wish you good luck for the future.
Yours sincerely
Apple, Google, Microsoft (please delete those that do not apply)
You have everything up there! Saved a lot of trees! Oooh.. bliss!
However... firstly, by reading the agreements of the 3 companies, you will notice that they use the same terminology regarding your data. If suddenly everything disappears from their storage, their liability is limited to a refund of paid services. If you pay nothing you get nothing. If you paid something for additional storage, you will get a refund of your last month. That's it... that's all.
Secondly, there is no mention whatsoever, in for instance the Google Terms of Service, of any duty of care regarding your FREE stored data. Ominously they state they "may add or remove functionalities or features, and may suspend or stop a Service altogether". All these companies have omitted any policy regarding future charges for these services... and that's the Plan.
Yes, they have been here for a while. In 2020 when we are all paperless (and defenceless), when paper forests have been reduced to 20% of the actual area we have today (meaning that 80% of paper forest trees have been wiped out, that's it for "saving trees"), when a ream of A4 Value paper in Tesco will rise from £3.50 to £40.00, then they will all come out with this statement:
Dear iCloud, Google Drive, Skydrive User,
It is with regret that we arrived to the conclusion that we can no longer supply our (iCloud, Google Drive, Skydrive) service free of charge, as we have done successfully in the past. The rising costs of data storage maintenance, energy, hardware and administration have led us to conclude that from 1 January 2020 your data storage with us will become a chargeable service. We have also been forced to review the pricing of our current additional storage plans.
We offer fantastic price plans that start at only £20.00 (or £2,000!!! they can charge you anything by then) per month for a whopping 5GB!!! storage. More price plans are available here.
You will be glad to know that part of your future payments on any chosen price plan will be allocated towards carbon offsetting. We hope that you will continue to use our services after that date.
We will be sad if you decide to leave us as we think we are the best service provider available. We thank you for the trust you had with us in the past and wish you good luck for the future.
Yours sincerely
Apple, Google, Microsoft (please delete those that do not apply)
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