Nothing is Free: MS Onedrive? [SOLVED]

[jpanhalt]

What are the hidden costs/risks/inconveniences to Microsoft's OneDrive?  My newish laptop keeps wanting to save to it. 

[PlainName]

* Giving them your data to train their AI with.

* Potential lock-in. They are well known for embracing, extending, extinguishing. One Drive may be super-compatible with Googles stuff now, but it will likely drift and you could find yourself in the position of being dependent on some One Drive feature. (Weirdly, this happened to me with plain old Windows file sharing - Windows allows a share to be defined below a parent share, and I used that for organising a NAS. Come time to switch to ANOther NAS, the share scheme couldn't be used.)

* Creeping fees. Free now, perhaps $1/yr for 20GB soon, then $2, the it's only 5GB and next thing you know you've ratcheted up to serious subscription fees. Frog boiling.

* Actually looking ahead, if most users are taken in with this it will become the default for everyone. Just like it's really hard to not have an online account in order to activate Windows now. If they think no-one wants it there's a chance it will die and we'll all end up much happier.

* It's Microsoft. They're not doing anything to benefit users, only Microsoft.

[abeyer]

Not sure if this applies for the consumer version... but at least with the onedrive integration in enterprise setups, it tries to hijack your "Documents", "Downloads" and several other default folders. But it's not perfect and does so only partially, so you essentially end up with both a local version and a onedrive version, and some software sees one and some sees the other. At least once a week I lose something because it's in the "wrong" version of one of those folders.

[shabaz]

Just as a possibly different datapoint: I'm not a power user of OneDrive, but still end up using it several times per week.
I like it, it seems fairly seamless when working with desktop and mobile.
On Windows, OneDrive appears like a completely separate folder (enterprise accounts might be set up differently, but by default, for a personal 365 account, there is just the separate folder which is backed up). There is nothing to install on Windows, it's natively part of Windows 11 I guess. There is browser access too, like most cloud storage systems, but I rarely use that.

I'm paying for the Microsoft 365 bundle, and 1TB of OneDrive is included in that. I think the bundle is good value for money even without OneDrive.

I find OneDrive to be a very convenient way to transfer stuff from mobile to desktop and vice-versa. Sure there are other ways, but it does what I want. I also like that I can quickly generate links for people (or public links if desired). On Windows, OneDrive just appears like a normal folder. It does sometimes take a while to sync, I don't know why. Other times it is quick. Anyway, that's a minor irritation.

The Android OneDrive app is good, I've never seen it crash or hang, and it does all I want it to do, i.e. explore files in OneDrive, share them by creating links, and add or remove files. Photos are automatically backed up too from Android, to OneDrive. Also you can collaborate, so if you've got a file open and editing it, then others can see the changes in real-time too. At least, that works with Office 365 (and that collaboration feature works with Android too).

I knowe all the above is possible with other cloud storage services too, I just happen to use Microsoft 365 and am happy with the supplied OneDrive capabilities.

[Marco]

What are the hidden costs/risks/inconveniences to Microsoft's OneDrive?  My newish laptop keeps wanting to save to it.

Not E2E encrypted, they spy on you and false positives have happened. Greater odds of getting hit by lightning, but still.

[madires]

Locked MS account when the pseudo AI thinks it found some illegal content.

[jpanhalt]

Thanks for all the advice.  PlainName and abeyer hit the nail on the head.  My worries exactly.  I had that obsolete issue with emails already. Creeping charges, like the change from license to rent will happen.  And the spying aspect is particularly worrisome.  When I worked, I kept two desktops.  One, which was used for work-related stuff, was never connected to the Internet.  Microsoft did whatever it could do to require a connection (late 1990's & early 2000).  The popups and Google search returns are clear evidence to me I'm being spied on.  Avast recently got fined by the FTC (https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/02/software-provider-avast-will-pay-165-million-compromising-consumers-privacy# ) for selling that information.

@shabaz
That's a good point.  There are a few occasions when I would like to share without using a thumb drive.  Since both are on the same wifi local network, I read there were ways to do that, but so far, I have been unsuccessful (Windows 7 desktop to Windows 11 laptop).

John

[IanB]

If you use OneDrive, you can have all your documents sync'd automatically to the cloud. This gives you protection against a local disk failure, and it allows you to access the same files anywhere in the world from your phone or from a laptop. The annual subscription for Microsoft 365 that includes 1 TB of storage is not that terrible, if you consider that it is paying for those services as well as use of all the office apps. OneDrive does also give you an encrypted storage vault to use as well, if you worry about sensitive documents.

It is convenient to scan documents from a phone and have the scans rapidly available on the desktop.

As for lock-in, you still have the local copy of your documents, which you are free to backup separately in other ways of your choosing.

[jpanhalt]

@IanB
For all my working life, I was tied to a telephone and felt it was my responsibility to be available 24/7/365.  I have been called in the oddest places when "on vacation."  I went in to work on every holiday to let the techs who had work those shifts know I was available.  When I retired, I took off that collar and chain and decided I had earned some privacy.  I do not have a smartphone.  The only cell phone I have is a pre-paid, flip top that I use only once or twice a year, because there are no more roadside telephone booths in the US. 

[IanB]

For all my working life, I was tied to a telephone and felt it was my responsibility to be available 24/7/365.  I have been called in the oddest places when "on vacation."  I went in to work on every holiday to let the techs who had work those shifts know I was available.  When I retired, I took off that collar and chain and decided I had earned some privacy.  I do not have a smartphone.  The only cell phone I have is a pre-paid, flip top that I use only once or twice a year, because there are no more roadside telephone booths in the US.

I do not understand. If you have retired, there is no one at work to call you on your smartphone, therefore that is not a reason not to own one.

I have a personal phone number and a work phone number. I do not share my personal phone number with work. If I am on vacation I set an out of office notification on my emails and I set my work phone to silent mode.

There is isolation, and there is privacy. If you are out of touch, and unable to communicate, then that is isolation, not privacy.

Isolation and privacy do overlap, but you have to make a personal choice about how isolated you want to be (your ability to communicate and access information) vs. how private you want to be (how much you share of yourself with the world around you).

[thm_w]

Wonder if there is a way to encrypt the contents of the folder, so only the encrypted data is synced.

https://tresorit.com/blog/google-drive-onedrive-dropbox-privacy-policy/

[golden_labels]

You becoming an asset
Userbase has financial value on its own. Often enough to offset costs of keeping it around without actively gaining anything at the moment.

Normalization of service/product
“Everybody uses it” is also a value. This both gives a company a strong position in offering stuff to directly paying customers (enterprise, government, …), and makes it more likely for decisionmakers to choose the platform even without the company approaching them (e.g. state agencies requiring you to sign up to an appstore to file tax returns or get social benefits).

Both intersect with PlainName has listed, but are independent concepts.

[Marco]

Wonder if there is a way to encrypt the contents of the folder, so only the encrypted data is synced.

Onedrive has API keys so third party backup software with e2ee can use it, for instance duplicity or duplicati.