स्मार्टफोन

How a decade-old smartphone saves consumers thousands of shekels

While every decade-old smartphone is considered today to be worthless electronic junk, Google’s first Pixel model has become a revenue-generating asset that stars on secondhand marketplaces and quietly chips away at the tech giant’s revenues.

The reason for the surge in demand is not its unique hardware or a burst of nostalgia, but rather a line noted in the fine print that accompanied the device’s launch in October 2016: A promise of free, unlimited cloud storage for photos and videos on Google Photos, in original resolution and without compression, for life.

This commitment, which seemed at the time like a marketing gimmick, is worth a great deal of money today to the tech consumer and is becoming an expense item on Google’s balance sheets.

The math of the cloud: Why is this worth thousands of shekels?

A modern smartphone or advanced camera produces files whose size fills the device’s storage within one to two years. To free up space, tech giants push users to pay regular monthly rental fees for cloud storage (such as Apple’s iCloud or Google One), with a subscription for a 2-terabyte capacity costing around $100 a year.

Content creators, photographers, and even average families quickly reach volumes of 5 or 10 terabytes, which drives the cost up to hundreds of dollars every year, forever.

The first Pixel’s benefit therefore grants two advantages that cannot be bought today under the same conditions: Infinite backup without a storage cap, and perhaps even more importantly, maintaining original quality. In other words, the Pixel model uploads photos and videos exactly as they were shot, including heavy 4K video files and professional RAW photo files, without losing a single pixel, whereas standard cloud services compress and shrink files to save server space.

The economic equation is clear: Instead of paying annual subscription fees for the entire duration of their storage at a cost of hundreds of dollars a year, consumers purchase a used Pixel 1 on marketplaces like eBay at prices that usually range between $70 and $150 (depending on its physical condition, and more).

An eternal storage server

The Pixel, however, does not leave home with the purchaser: Buyers disconnect the SIM card, connect it permanently to the home Wi-Fi network, and use it as a private relay station. Using automatic synchronization apps like Resilio Sync or rclone, they stream photos and videos to it from the computer, drone, or new iPhone, and the Pixel uploads everything to Google’s cloud for free.

However, using a decade-old device connected to an electrical outlet 24 hours a day creates a different kind of problem: Old lithium batteries charged continuously tend to swell, heat up, and pose a safety hazard. In technological web communities, a solution has begun circulating in the form of a guide suggesting the removal of the original battery and soldering a power cable or DC converter to the contacts of the phone’s motherboard.

What are a few terabytes compared to a reputation with revenues of half a trillion dollars?

Google realized the promise’s potential rather quickly, and shut off the tap in all subsequent generations of the smartphone. In 2018, it even tried to quietly back away from the original Pixel’s commitment when it published a policy document omitting it from the list of eligible devices. But the move sparked an uproar, Google backed down and claimed it was a mistake, and officially confirmed that original Pixel owners would continue to enjoy the unlimited storage benefit forever.

One of the intriguing questions in the market is how much this forced generosity costs Google. The figure remains a riddle since the writer of these lines is unaware of any disclosure of storage cost data for original Pixel users, but the trend is clear: Every 4K video uploaded for free takes up expensive server space, and every heavy customer who gives up a Google One subscription is a direct loss of revenue.

And yet, when looking at the broad financial picture, one can understand why Google nevertheless chooses to let it slide. Parent company Alphabet is expected to finish 2026 with a historic record in revenues expected to cross the half-trillion-dollar mark.

Google did not respond to Walla Money’s questions on the matter, but with revenues in such figures, even the storage cost of tens of thousands of old Pixel devices active around the world will likely not pose a nuisance to the reports. Meanwhile, Google is teaching an important lesson to the entire market: Promises to consumers, especially when etched in the fine print, last even longer than the device model itself.

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