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"A significant portion of my personal history is stored on Snapchat, and unexpectedly they want us to fork out money for it."

Poor ratings and a perception of inequity have dominated digital forums since Snapchat became the latest digital platform to start charging for a feature that people previously accessed for free.

The app's parent company declared in September that it would start charging users if they have over five gigabytes of previously shared photos and clips stored as Snapchat Memories.

For many, these past uploads serve as a portal to bygone days – leading some to blast the firm of "money-hungry tactics" in posts on social media and negative ratings on digital storefronts.

Available Solutions

Snap has equated its premium storage tiers to those provided by tech giants for smartphones.

And as an alternative for those who don't want to pay, subscribers may save their saved content – which for certain users span significant data – to their device.

Snap indicated that only a minority of members would be impacted by the new policy.

They recognized that it was "inherently difficult to transition from using a feature without cost to covering the expense" – but proposed it would be "a valuable investment" for members.

Many opposing the change online seem to disagree.

User Backlash

A web-based protest dubbed the charge a "memory tax", with commenters describing it "dystopian" and "outrageous" – while one person vowed never to use the app in the future.

In parallel, in a one-star evaluation on the app marketplace, a user calling themselves an online commenter said it felt "deeply unfair".

"As a member of that generation, most of us have a long history of personal moments on this service," they commented. "And most of us only continued using Snapchat primarily for that reason. 5GB is absolutely nothing when you have a long timeline of memories... Farewell Snapchat."

And, a journalism student, a 20-year-old journalism student in London, revealed on TikTok her decision to uninstall the platform.

"I concluded that I needed to download all my saved content as quickly as possible," she explained. "Almost all of my youth have been documented through my saved snaps, all of the photos in there are deeply meaningful to me."

"This seems illogical to start charging users for a feature that has been free for a considerable period."

Uncertain Costs

The company has not yet said how much storage plans would require in the UK – only that they are part of a "phased international launch".

However 23-year-old Amber Daley, who resides in the capital, said in a upload on the social platform that she would be "upset" by the new costs.

The user explained that the service had become "integrated into daily routine" since she started using it in 2014.

While she said she understood the app needed to make money, Amber proposed that the saved content option means more to users than the company may have understood.

"Personally, I believe it's a somewhat inequitable move to demand payment from your customers who have been faithful and dedicated," she said. "These aren't just called Memories, these are our genuine personal moments."

Expert Analysis

Firms choosing to require payment from customers for a feature that was previously free is a common practice, and numerous people pay for options like iCloud and Google Drive to backup their media content from their mobile device.

The fact of storing data in the online servers – which some in the technology sector frequently call as simply "an external server" – is that it involves expenses.

"Hosting trillions of archived media on the service demands considerable investment," online expert an industry analyst explained. "The platform has to seek out a way to cover the cost of archiving, bandwidth, duplicates, file sharing, encryption – the entire process."

Yet Mr Navarra noted that requiring payment for a feature that had once been complimentary, and members had been prompted to utilize as such, may seem like a "deceptive practice" for certain individuals.

"Moving the goalposts after people have created this extensive stored content doesn't really sit right," he explained. And for many, he added, "Archived media exceeds mere information, they're sentimental records."

The opinion was reflected by those submitting critical reviews, with a user labeling their Snapchat photos and videos "deeply important to me".

"[Memories] have every aspect of my life within them from joyful events like births, grieving for lost relatives, memories with friends/family, [and] my entire youth," they commented.

Research Perspective

A postdoctoral researcher, a research fellow at a Dutch institution in the the Low Countries, said that Snapchat's move shows the implications of business-oriented apps being used to store emotional private media.

"Platforms gain from this confidence, interdependence, and expectation of continuous entry, which even encourages many people to remain with the platform or persist with the feature in order to scroll back through their stored media," she told journalists. "But these are not charitable custodians of private remembrance."