After Google Adjustment, Dropbox No Longer Offers Unrestricted Cloud Storage

Dropbox Inc., a company that offers online data storage, has decided to discontinue its unlimited option due to a few customers who were utilizing excessive resources. This move aims to prevent any degradation of the cloud service for the rest of its clientele.

The company’s top-tier “all the space you need” storage plan will be limited to about 5 terabytes per user for new customers, the company said in a blog post shared with Bloomberg and published Thursday. That’s enough space to save about 33 million documents, Dropbox said.

While the plan was designed for businesses, some customers instead used it to mine cryptocurrencies, pool inventory with strangers or resell cloud storage, Dropbox said. These uses “often consume thousands of times more storage than our real business customers, potentially causing an unreliable experience for all of our customers,” the company said.

With more than 18 million paying users, Dropbox is one of the best-known companies in the cloud storage space and reported annual recurring revenue of $2.5 billion during its second fiscal year results on August 3. The company has sought to expand beyond the storage space. with document management services and video-specific tools.

The change comes as Alphabet Inc.’s Google removed the “as much storage as you need” product branding from its top-tier Workspace plan in May, according to copies of its website hosted on the Wayback Machine. Customers have written on the forums that they have exceeded storage limits and need to pay for additional capacity. Some discussed switching to Dropbox after receiving such warnings.

A Google spokesperson said the company began rolling out “pooled storage” to customers last year, and those who use more than 80 percent of their plan’s limit will be notified. While the storage policies were not changed in May, the language was updated to clarify that customers on these contracts get 5TB of Drive Secure cloud storage per user and can request more, the spokesperson said.

Dropbox said it has seen an increase in unintended uses in recent months “following other services that have done similar practices.” The company’s server capacity has been under increased pressure in recent weeks, said a person familiar with the matter while discussing internal matters.

With Dropbox’s new plan, each additional terabyte costs $8 per month, compared to the previous “as much space as needed” plan, which was $24 per month. Existing users with less than 35 terabytes — more than 99% of top-tier plan customers — will be able to keep their current storage at the same price for five years, the company said. Crossers will be contacted “to discuss different options”.

Across the economy, more and more people and businesses are relying on Internet-based services to store and manage their files. Industry analyst IDC said cloud storage spending is expected to jump 25 percent this year to $59.9 billion and $127.8 billion in 2027. For its infrastructure customers, Google raised cloud storage costs last year. Apple Inc. also recently raised cloud storage prices for its customers in the UK. Amazon.com Inc. once offered unlimited storage, but ended it in 2017. Microsoft Corp. made a similar move in 2015. Another provider, Box Inc., still advertises “unlimited storage” for its business plans.

“We understand that changing the ‘all the space you need’ policy will be disappointing for some customers,” Dropbox said. “While we cannot offer this option going forward, our goal is to ensure that the majority of teams on our Advanced plan do not experience disruption.”