This space is frustrating with any of the cloud vendors as they originally offered a lot of storage for free, then had to resort to various strategies to claw that back after it got expensive.
Google is especially frustrating for me. By default, an Android tries to sync all videos and photos up to Google photos. You can turn that off, but not in any sort of granular way. For example, you can't say "sync photos, but don't sync videos". You USED to be able to do this, but it's all or nothing now. Which I suppose drives revenue for the paid storage plans?
While I still use Google Photos, there are times that I don't want pictures I take with my phone to be synced to the cloud. Since Google Photos does not allow such functionality, I installed a second camera app. That app allows me to choose where the picture are saved, so I save them to a folder that doesn't get backed up by Google Photos.
It's annoying to have to do this, but at least I can finally choose what gets synced and what doesn't.
I specifically use "Secure Cam" from GrapheneOS (mine came from Google Play) for this, as it is close to the stock pixel camera and doesn't suffer the lag some other camera apps have.
-- edit
I originally called the app "private cam" and said it was from fdroid, apologies! Forgot I had aliased it.
> This space is frustrating with any of the cloud vendors as they originally offered a lot of storage for free, then had to resort to various strategies to claw that back after it got expensive.
Getting users to add photos and then charging (while also using them as image sets for training) was the strategy from the beginning. They didn't resort to anything. Keeping your photos stored somewhere is very sticky, particularly for non-software developers. And even so how do you even transfer them to another service without a huge bill?
I did spell out what one of the changes was. I used to be able to sync photos, which for me isn't a lot of space...but also NOT SYNC videos, which do use a lot of space. That option was removed, and syncing can only be turned off/on globally now.
Google is especially frustrating for me. By default, an Android tries to sync all videos and photos up to Google photos. You can turn that off, but not in any sort of granular way. For example, you can't say "sync photos, but don't sync videos". You USED to be able to do this, but it's all or nothing now. Which I suppose drives revenue for the paid storage plans?