The young man who slays dragons eventually becomes an evil dragon.When Alibaba Cloud Disk launched its golden brand of "extremely fast upload and download", it undoubtedly directly "closed the door" to Baidu Netdisk. The latter's "speed limit" problem has been criticized by users. Relying on the "unlimited speed" trick, Alibaba Cloud Disk quickly gained momentum and once ranked second in the free list of Apple's App Store App Store.But what if the advantage of not limiting the speed is gone? In other words, what will happen if Alibaba Cloud Disk now imposes download speed limits like Baidu Netdisk?
In early July 2024, Alibaba Cloud Disk released a new version update.Some netizens discovered that when they used infuse, VidHub, Filmly, Alist and other players to mount Alibaba cloud disks, the speed was limited. The network was prone to lags and the download speed dropped to 0.5-1MB/second. This speed basically made it impossible to watch high-definition videos. The user was still a paid SVIP user, but only had 10GB of download rights.
Alibaba Cloud Disk very considerately adds new benefit packages for users who have already purchased SVIP. The price is not expensive, only 110 yuan/year after discount.. It turns out that Alibaba Cloud Disk has launched a new paid service "Third Party Application Rights Package" in the new version. Users only need to pay again to enjoy 1TB of high-speed download traffic per month.
It has been more than three years since Alibaba Cloud Disk was launched in public beta in March 2021. Its reputation in the industry is not bad. Relying on the legend of “unlimited speed”, users are still very satisfied with Alibaba Cloud Disk.Some netizens even call the "infuse+Alibaba Cloud Disk" combination a magical tool for chasing dramas on iOS.
Even in the latest version of Alibaba Cloud Disk (6.1.0), the application description still has the words "extremely fast upload and download". Although it is said so, the speed limit is quietly implemented.
According to Guo Jing’s observations in the Internet circle,When the user downloads on the PC, the prompt "Because the currently used capacity has exceeded the available range, the download speed is limited, please clear the excess capacity as soon as possible or purchase a membership/capacity package", the actual download speed is limited to tens of KB/s, and this download speed is even worse than Baidu Netdisk. Alibaba Cloud Disk's speed limit for downloads exceeding capacity will begin in March 2024.
When the user clears enough space, the download speed becomes faster, about 2MB/s. This speed is not slow, but under the same bandwidth,The download speed of Xunlei is about 20MB/s, Alibaba Cloud Disk is obviously also quietly limiting the speed.
So, for Alibaba Cloud Disk, when it loses the trump card of "speed limit", what should it do to compete with Baidu Netdisk?
The second wave of network disk
In 2016, well-known cloud disks such as UC Netdisk, Sina Microdisk, Xunlei Kuaipan, and Kingsoft Netdisk collapsed one after another, causing users to despair of the netdisk industry. Even 360 Clouddisk, with a total number of registered users exceeding 160 million, also issued a notice of closure of personal cloud disk services. Which netdisk is still trustworthy?
The traffic of these failed network disks eventually became cheaper than Baidu Network Disk. Its number of registered users exceeded 800 million in 2022, and the total amount of stored data exceeded 100 billion GB.
Less than five years after the collapse of the online disk industry, Internet giants have once again focused their innovative vision on the online disk industry, and the second wave of online disk has emerged.
On the one hand, although Baidu Netdisk has a large number of users, there are also many potential problems with Baidu Netdisk, such as upload and download speed limits, the need to purchase VIP to upload videos on mobile phones, etc. The existence of Baidu Netdisk just proves that "there are always unmet needs in the market."On the other hand, when all kinds of messy small and medium-sized network disks are cleared out, the giants do not need to worry about traffic and users being snatched away by various unknown small network disks. In addition, the cloud services provided by mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO have also fueled the demand for personal cloud storage.
In 2020, network disks such as Xunlei and Alibaba Cloud Disk have been launched one after another. Even the once-closed network disks UC Cloud Disk and 360 Cloud Disk have quietly come online. Together with Quark Cloud Disk, 115, China Mobile Cloud Disk, Tianyi Cloud Disk, etc., the network disk market seems to be experiencing a "hundred schools of thought contending" event again.
Compared with the network disk market in the past, network disk products after 2020 no longer need to rely on gimmicks such as "always free" and "unlimited space" to attract users, andThe difference between ordinary users and paying users is obvious. The free storage space for ordinary users is very limited, with a maximum of only 105GB. The cloud service storage space that comes with the phone is only 5GB.
Many of this wave of network disk products are aimed at the pain points of Baidu Network Disk, namely upload and download speed limits. More and more network disks began to implement "unlimited speed", which suddenly put Baidu network disk at a disadvantage, and they even took away part of the market.However, it is not easy to shake the status of Baidu Netdisk. Times have changed, and users can no longer replace old products just by relying on the advantages and disadvantages of the products.
Prevent free prostitution
Qimai data shows that in the past year, most of Baidu Cloud Disk’s overall rankings in the AppStore were within the top 50, while Alibaba Cloud Disk’s rankings were mostly outside the 200th. In the past 30 days, the average daily download volume of Baidu Cloud Disk was approximately 52,661 times, while the average daily download volume of Alibaba Cloud Disk was approximately 9,717 times. The gap between the two is evident.
Alibaba Cloud Disk, which plays the "unlimited speed" card, cannot catch up with Baidu Netdisk. Now, Alibaba Cloud Disk, which has quietly begun to limit speed, how can it compete with Baidu Netdisk?
In front of Alibaba Cloud Disk, in addition to competition with Baidu Netdisk, 115, Xunlei and other netdisks, there is also the imminent issue of profitability.
According to a report by "LatePost", at a meeting of Alibaba's core executives, the Alibaba management team reached a consensus - they must have "business awareness", focus on strategy, have determination, and know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Behind the so-called "business awareness", there is obviously a consideration of making money and profit, rather than just the number of daily active users, retention rate, App opening rate and other indicators.No matter how good the data is, it is difficult to sustain it with platform subsidies alone. In recent years, it is too common for major Internet companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance to ax unprofitable projects..
Targeting existing users is an inevitable move for the platform. No platform will be free forever. In the past, watching videos, reading novels, listening to songs, etc. have all moved towards a paid model. It is not unusual for Alibaba Cloud Disk to adopt a paid model.Even in terms of purpose, it is no problem for Alibaba Cloud Disk to charge for third-party application rights packages in addition to regular SVIP membership.
When Alibaba Cloud Disk opened up third-party applications, its third-party application library was very large.Just like Taobao, users can find a variety of third-party tools such as large-screen movie viewing, book, video, and audio entertainment, file management, and professional tools. Currently, there are 25 various tools that cooperate with the Alibaba Cloud Disk Open Platform.
Now that more value-added services have emerged, what's wrong with Alibaba Cloud's cooperation with these platforms to create a third-party rights package? andAnother more reasonable reason for Alibaba Cloud Disk’s charging is to prevent free prostitution. The platform cannot allow users to use these applications for free for a long time. The charging is also based on the interests of the platform..
The third-party application rights package payment really hurts not ordinary free prostitute users, but users who have paid for SVIP, because the user has already purchased a membership once, and then informs the user that if they want to use some functions more conveniently, they have to pay for membership again. Isn't this exactly the same as the various secondary charging models of video websites? No wonder it triggers complaints from SVIP users.The benefits of the platform are there, but these users who have purchased memberships feel like they have been “taken advantage of”.
Perhaps feeling the anger of many SVIP users, Alibaba Cloud Disk has also given a wave of benefits to old paying users.SVIP users can receive a member-exclusive three-party experience card from 1 month to 12 months based on the remaining time.
For users, if they need to spend money everywhere, then why should they buy Alibaba cloud disk instead of Baidu cloud disk or Xunlei cloud disk or 115? This may be a problem that Alibaba Cloud Disk needs to solve. As a network disk product, what is its particularity? How can it attract users to pay?
From Netdisk to Netdisk+
The ideal state of a typical tool-based product like Netdisk is for users to pay instead of using free resources on the platform.. But the reality is that as users become more and more sophisticated, it becomes increasingly difficult to take money out of users’ pockets. The 2023 Q4 quarterly financial report released by cloud storage service provider Dropbox shows that the company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) at the end of this quarter was US$2.523 billion. This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which its ARR growth has declined. This is still the case for Dropbox, and the payment rates of other network disk platforms are obviously even less optimistic.
According to Guo Jing’s observation in the Internet circle, compared with the first wave of network disk products, the second wave of network disk products will go further. The specific manifestation is from network disk to network disk +.
The main function of the cloud disk product is to provide users with the storage and upload of videos, audios, documents, notes and other content. This is the same as the cloud storage service that comes with mobile phones. However,The cloud storage space provided by mobile phone manufacturers is too small, and it is not as convenient as third-party network disk products in cross-interfaces such as PC and TV.A typical example is iCloud for Apple mobile phones and Windows-based computers, or network disk products from Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus, vivo, OPPO and Apple computers are more convenient to use.
As users use network disk products for a longer period of time, their needs are not only content storage, uploading and downloading, therefore, the functions of network disk products have also become diversified.
In this regard, Baidu Netdisk's path is to launch joint memberships with Bilibili, Himalaya, QQ, Youku, Keep, Kuaikan Comics, etc.; Alibaba Cloud Disk's path is to launch third-party application rights packages to enrich users' usage scenarios in Netdisk.
In the face of the current hot AI, network disk products are also not absent., in Baidu Netdisk, users can launch the "Yun Yiduo" intelligent assistant. The system will help users find the information they want from the Netdisk, and can also intelligently generate the answers the user wants. Alibaba Cloud Disk cooperates with third-party applications, such as Tongyi Tingwu, BibiGPT, etc.
If the first wave of cloud storage opened up users' minds to use cloud storage, then the second wave of cloud storage has turned some users into deep cloud storage users. Whether it is work (synchronizing disks anytime and anywhere) or life (watching movies, reading novels, and saving songs), they have become accustomed to the existence of cloud storage.
It's a pity that this new wave of cloud disk users are still too young. They don't know that "free lunch" cannot always be available. Behind Alibaba Cloud Disk's various free and unlimited speeds, today's situation will inevitably occur. In the end, it will become the same as Baidu Cloud Disk. If the cloud disk does not make money, is it just for fun? Having said that, young people are also very smart. If you engage in secondary charging, then I will change the platform. Who is not using it?
When a young dragon-slaying boy meets a smart boy, guess who will win.