Attention MSN Photo users: You have two weeks to subscribe to MSN 8 or download your photos if you don"t want to lose them.
On May 22, MSN is planning to offer its photo service only to subscribers of MSN 8, an Internet service that bundles online services such as e-mail and instant messaging with dial-up access for $21.95 per month. Currently people do not have to pay to store photos with MSN Photo.
The move is the latest effort by MSN to turn formerly free services into paid ones. MSN already has started to charge for some services that used to be free, including extra storage in Hotmail in-boxes. In an attempt to get more paying customers, Microsoft has said it intends make other services exclusive to MSN 8 subscribers.
"It sounds like sort of a continuation of a trend we"re seeing, which is to make MSN into a break-even business if not a profitable one," Matt Rosoff, industry analyst with Directions On Microsoft. "It just shows that they are under some pressure from the rest of the company to turn the corner and make some money."
A representative of MSN said the company decided to start offering photo storage only to MSN 8 users because the free service was turning into a drain on resources. Many photo users would upload their photos, but then wouldn"t come back to update their photo collection or buy prints and other services. "It"s taking up a lot of storage and costing a lot of money," the MSN representative said.