Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP.
The "unlimited storage" in the pitch was obviously referring to uploaded photos not being counted against your storage quota, not a guarantee that this arrangement would continue indefinitely.
Techcruch, arguably an entity with some experience and credibility in assessing product and service offerings, noted both "unlimited" and "free" in describing Google Photos.
Which might be considered a presumptive public expectaction.
Techcrunch never claimed what you are claiming. Yes, at launch the service was both unlimited (in storage capacity—not duration) and free. They never said that state of affairs would last forever, and it would have been unreasonable for anyone to assume that it would.
They’re pitching it as having “unlimited storage”....
Yep! We were right. Google Photos will launch today, for free.
https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/confirmed-google-will-laun...
HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618965
Highlight comment:
Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP.
-- XJOKOLAT https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9619340