Summary

Big tech companies offer free services by monetizing user data instead of charging money. Reduced profits from data monetization are leading to cost-saving measures affecting free services such as Gmail and Google Drive. Current trends suggest that the cost of high-quality data storage is outpacing the value of data within said storage, suggesting that free services may not be free for much longer.

Breakdown

• Increasing user storage demand is straining cloud storage capacities: 4K video shot at 60fps can be done on midgrade or better smartphones making large file formats more and more common.
• The cost of storage for cloud providers is not decreasing.
• There has been a noticeable decline in innovation with respect to physical mediums for digital storage .
• User data is less available to tech companies providing free services due to the proliferation of things like ad blockers and privacy-focused browsers.
• Google Drive and YouTube Premium price hikes reflect the need for increased revenue.
• Fake streams and scams on YouTube indicate a decline in platform quality and also put a strain on cloud storage.
• Government intervention in antitrust cases could force radical changes in the number of free services offered by tech companies - especially when it comes to services that heavily rely on Google’s ad network for revenue.