I am actually very much in favor of paying for what I use.
Truth is that upfront payment for storage and convenience is a much more sustainable model than subsidizing this through spyware and other services. Also given the amount of storage needed his seems pretty inevitable.
The problem with this is that there’s not a way to pay google $x/year to not see ads and also not be tracked everywhere you go (obviously requiring you allow cross-site google cookies) and/or limit what systems your browsing data is piped to. With this announcement, it’s just more income diversification since search ads might be pulled from them via antitrust.
Truth is that upfront payment for storage and convenience is a much more sustainable model than subsidizing this through spyware and other services. Also given the amount of storage needed his seems pretty inevitable.