Snapchat, the once-freewheeling app for ephemeral snaps, is now slapping a paywall on users' cherished memories. Starting this month, the company will limit free storage for saved photos and videos to just 5GB. Anything beyond that? You'll need to pony up $1.99 a month for up to 100GB, or opt into pricier tiers like Snapchat Plus at $9.99 monthly, which bundles 250GB of space. It's a shift that's already ruffling feathers among the platform's 460 million daily active users.
Memories, launched back in 2016 as a way to hoard those fleeting moments, have exploded in popularity. Snap Inc. boasts over one trillion saved items, but the infrastructure costs are piling up. "We never expected it to grow this big," the company admitted in its announcement last week. Indeed, with 900 million monthly users snapping away, free storage was bound to hit a wall eventually. But for heavy users—think endless vacation albums or years of party pics—this feels like a gut punch. Current users get a 12-month grace period to export their data or subscribe, avoiding immediate deletion.
Reactions online are swift and sharp. Many call it greedy, especially since Snapchat's core appeal was always that carefree disposability. One user fumed on social media about paying to preserve "drunk me eating cheesy chips," while others decry the unfairness of monetizing nostalgia. However, Snap insists most folks won't notice; the vast majority hover under 5GB. Still, it's a bold play in a crowded market where rivals like Instagram offer unlimited storage without the hassle.
Moreover, this comes amid broader pressures on social platforms to turn profits. Snapchat's stock has wobbled, and execs are eyeing subscriptions to stabilize revenue. The rollout is gradual, hitting select regions first, with full details on pricing varying by country. But as users scramble to back up their digital diaries, the question lingers: is this the end of truly free social saving?