As college students, a lot of our work is required to be completed online. This means that we must have files on our computer to complete the work, and with these accumulating over time, some can be forced to pay for storage.
This is a problem not only at work and school, but even on our personal social media, where we can see storage becoming something that needs to be paid for.
Recently, we’ve seen Snapchat put a storage cap of five gigabytes on the memories tab unless one decides to pay for more. Users would have 12 months to either pay for storage or back up the saved memories. According to RTÉ News, the app launched memories in 2016, which means long-term users have amassed many snaps, over 1 trillion to be specific.
Overall, the reason for my usage of Snapchat was primarily for the memories. Paying for iCloud+ was not in the picture, so it was used to dump photos and videos instead of putting them in my camera roll. Now that can not be done for anyone who was in the same boat.
The payments may not seem like much now, but when thinking of the bigger picture, one should know that they will increase over time. For example, iCloud+ is 99 cents for 50 gigabytes, but how many pictures or files will one person have in a lifetime? Personally, I have surpassed 50 gigabytes, so I am now paying 2.99 a month for iCloud+. I can only imagine what the price will be once I am 30 years old and have thousands of more files.
Especially with regard to inflation, I could see storage prices rising. For example, on Jan. 31, 2026, I got a notification saying that my Spotify Premium price was going to rise from 11.99 to 12.99. Who’s to say prices won’t rise with file hosting services? And how long will it take before I am paying 10 to 20 dollars a month for storage? As a college student, that is a no-go.
This can especially be a problem with those who are doing majors relating to things done online, such as graphic design, filmmaking, etc.; it can be easy to see the files add up. There are lots of file hosting services that have a free limit, but at some point, they cost money. As a student double-majoring in filmmaking and journalism, it seems as though buying an external hard drive or an sd card would be better than paying monthly amounts for the rest of my life.
Google drive used to be my go-to as a student because it was the easiest for me. However, according to CBackup, there is only 15 gigabytes for free and the storage is shared by Gmail, Google drive, and Google photos. With the storage being shared among all of those Google platforms, it seems that it can be easy to go past the 15 gigabyte cap, resulting in the need to pay for more storage or find a different file hosting service.
According to WSU, there are file service plans for students, and the options have a good amount of storage for academic purposes. This makes it easier for students to have space for files instead of using up their personal cloud storage on assignments and more. Thankfully, those options are given to us; however, only for now.
Paying for files to be backed up and saved is a scam. Storage payments will continue and add up for the rest of our lives and I doubt many people want to lose precious memories or resume content. At this point of modernity where memories are now in the cloud instead of on tapes, we can see how monthly payments are becoming a new regular. My question now is, how long until the free limit is taken away or costs?
