For quite some time, Microsoft 365 Family has been one of the best value software subscriptions: the full Office suite of desktop apps, plus the cloud apps and 1TB of OneDrive storage per user (up to six users) for just £79.99 a year. It was remarkable value.
Of course, Microsoft whacked the price up to £104.99 a year for the ‘benefit’ of having slightly rubbish AI with Co-pilot, but most existing users could ‘downgrade’ to the cheaper Classic package without Co-pilot and, even if you didn’t, that price was still very good for all you got.
Yesterday, Microsoft sent out an email, labelled “Upcoming changes to your Microsoft 365 subscription”. The first bullet point was titled “More flexible cloud storage”. I skim-read what it said, and my first thought was that the 1TB per user was being replaced by 2TB per user. That’s generous, I thought. Then, I read it again: “Your cloud storage allowance will change from 1 TB per person to 2 TB of shared storage so everyone on the plan can use the free space while keeping their own accounts and files private. This change will apply after your first renewal after May 2nd, 2027.”
So, rather than everyone getting 1TB of cloud storage, everyone now has to share everything. That’s fine if you’ve got a lot of light users, but if you’ve got a busy household, 2TB isn’t going to cut it.
In reality, Microsoft has turned 6TB of cloud storage into 2TB, while charging the same price. It’s not about flexibility; it’s about cost-saving. It’s shrinkflation. No doubt, the high cost of AI, which has pushed up the prices of storage and memory, has something to do with this, but it’s a rubbish move all round.
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