Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
One of the big reasons that Google’s become as big as it has is the way it makes so many of its services available for anyone to use, totally free of charge. Sure, the company turns around and makes ad money off our usage, but offering so much for so little is still an incredibly impressive feat. That said, Google’s not going to sit there and leave money on the table, and if there’s the chance to upsell you on a premium service — kinda like Google One — it’s going to be very interested in making that conversion.
Last month, while we were poking our nose around looking for upcoming features in a new Google Photos release, we spotted evidence that seemed to suggest Google was working on a new Google One “Lite” offering. While we were immediately intrigued, we also didn’t know quite what to expect from a tier labeled like that. Presumably it would exist somewhere around the $2/month Basic tier we have now, but what exactly would it include? Would it mean giving up features we value?
Google still hasn’t shed any light on what this possible Lite plan might look like, so we thought we’d come up with some ideas of our own, and see which you’d be most interested in the company actually doing. Those poll results are now in, and more than anything, you seem to want cheap, no-frills cloud storage:
What would you want from a ‘Lite’ Google One plan?
Now, that Basic tier is already pretty bare-bones, primarily consisting of 100GB of cloud storage. But it does also include a few extras on top of that, like being able to share your storage with up to 5 people, and limited access to Magic Editor for your pics. We doubt cutting those would save Google enough to slash the price in half down to just $1/month, but maybe there’s some wiggle room there.
A surprising number of you are interested in AI features, which right now Google only offers as an enhanced version of One’s Premium tier — for double the monthly price. Since that effectively makes AI itself a $10 premium, we highly doubt its presence makes sense for anything called a Lite tier.
Maybe the most realistic option here would be a reduced storage option. As some of you mentioned in the comments, 100GB is way more than you need, so a Lite plan with maybe 50GB of storage sounds appealing. And really, across the board, it sounds like you’d like more granular storage options than Google currently offers.
You had plenty of more good ideas to share in the comments, like pining for something like Apple One, possibly bundling services like YouTube Premium with Google One. That could be a nice way to save a little, but it also feels like the polar opposite of a Lite option. We might just have to wait for Google to finally break its silence on this one before we’re any closer to understanding just what Google One Lite might offer — and how much we’d expect to pay for it.
