The article makes valid points but completely misses the real point. The real point, that has been pointed out every single time Google kills another product, is that every time they do that it erodes user trust. This point has been harped on for years, with more and more people agreeing with it the more and more Google kills products.
Is it any surprise then, that we’re finally reaching a critical mass of users not trusting Google? It’s less update this specific promise being untrustworthy, then the entire company being untrustworthy and this just happens to be the point that the dialogue had changed.
not as if the Pixel 8 is just a small Pixel 8 Pro – it isn’t.
The phones are nearly identical. The Pro has more RAM, a different secondary camera, and a third camera.
Apple absolutely should be (and is frequently) criticized for artificially locking features to certain models.
Obviously it’s a good thing to have increased software support. 7 years of security updates is, on its own, a big deal. Google deserves credit for that. But they also deserve to be called out on their bullshit, same as Apple or any other company.
In defense of Google, I have a first-gen Pixel that still gets unlimited Google Photos uploads.
This phone is seven years old and Google had kept its commitment that photo uploads would remain free for the life of the phone.
Also in defense of Google - I’m still grandfathered in to the $8 plan for YouTube premium because I signed up and have remained subscribed since 2013 when they offered promotional pricing at the beginning of Google Play Music. Years later, they added YouTube Red (now Premium) to the subscription which REALLY sweetened the pot. But they’ve never bumped my subscription price up.
Be prepared to pay when it dies. I assumed it wouldn’t count when I got a new phone. It does. So now they want me to sign up for a plan. Well, now they want me to pay more for a higher tier. I got a nas instead. I’m cancelling the plan.
I forgot that I had years of free uploads from my Pixel 2. That eventually expired. But I never had to pay for those uploads.
I also had 100 extra GB for two years for being one of the first Google Maps guides, populating the map with the first photos of businesses etc. When that expired, I did have to start paying. Google are smart - they got me addicted to having all my files right there wherever I was. It’s only $20ish per year for that tier, I have been happy to pay for it. I think this might be what happened to you. You may have had some sort of promotion that expired.
I never had to do this with all the media I uploaded via my Pixel 2 back when it has those benefits. Everything I uploaded that way counts zero toward my storage cap, to this day.
The Pixel hasn’t left the house since 2018. All it has done since then is run SyncThing and upload the photos/videos taken by my current phones.
I’ve never heard of Syncthings, could you tell me more about it? Sounds interesting!
Paraphrasing MKBHD: Buy the phone for what it has today, not what it might have tomorrow.
I’d believe the promise of 7 years of updates from any other company but definitely not Google. In the words of Logan Roy
So there are two arguments being made in this situation. The first is that because Google kills off services and products all of the time, that taking their word for a 7-year promise is foolish. In other words, you might not want to trust them because they killed off a Pixel Pass that 25 people signed up for, a Google Podcasts app that was basically a browser in an app shell that was given a proper replacement, a niche business presentation screen in Jamboard, and Stadia…freaking Stadia. They gave you all of your money back and let you keep the controller, guys.
C’mon guys they had a “proper replacement” and let you keep the controller! They’re not all that bad! 👅🥾
I’ll never forgive them for Google Play Music.
I do however believe they’re going to stick to their word here though. They make the processor and the OS, it’d have to take some extreme ignorance to fuck that up. It’s not like they’re reliant on Qualcomm to release new drivers for the chip, one of the big reasons devices stop being updates.
