In article ,
newshound wrote:


Particularly as the "upload to google photos" will almost all be from
people who have ticked the box, which is something I am very reluctant
to do. I've probably got a terabyte or so on my NAS and other external
drives, and I don't at the moment fancy paying the current commercial
rates for that (obviously it is going to come down).

there is no monetary cost for google photos.

Even for a terabyte? I'd be surprised if that would be free for 100
million users. (I don't know how much compression they apply).

for photos up to 16 mpix, it's unlimited. otherwise it's 15 gig for
free.

most people don't have a terabyte of photos, let alone in the cloud,
and they don't necessarily need full resolution there anyway.

google data mines what is uploaded to sell targeted ads, so there is
also a privacy cost.

https://www.google.com/photos/about/
Back up unlimited photos and videos for free, up to 16MP and
1080p HD. Access them from any phone, tablet, or computer on
photos.google.com * your photos will be safe, secure, and always
with you.

for those who really do have 1tb of photos, there's flickr:
https://lifehacker.com/flickr-offers...r-your-photos-
50-ye-508972406
Yahoo, in an attempt to make its photo-hosting service Flickr
relevant again, decided to offer 1TB of free space to all users. The
downside? Everyone who doesn't pay $50 per year gets ads.

one thing online services offer that nases normally do not is being
able to access any photo from anywhere. you don't need to also have
copies on your phone and laptop. another is offsite backup.

Oh yes I am sold on the cloud for things like calendars, contacts, and
even email.

email has always been in the cloud. otherwise it could not work.

it's possible to set up outside access to one's own nas, but making
sure it's secure is non-trivial, plus most apps aren't designed to link
to it anyway.

Agree; certainly too much trouble for me. But it's nice to be able to
pick up photos straight through the wifi on the smart TVs.

yep.