Microsoft giving away 100GB of OneDrive storage if you join Bing Rewards
“Free” cloud storage offers can be gimmicky and require you to jump through a few too many hoops sometimes, but Microsoft's offering a pretty solid deal that doesn't call for much effort.
Context & Ripple Effects
The giveaway lands just weeks after Microsoft killed unlimited OneDrive storage and downgraded paid and free tiers, then partially walked it back under user pressure with an opt-in to keep 15GB. Handing out 100GB through Bing Rewards is the other side of that coin: capacity is no longer a standing promise but a lever to buy engagement with Bing search.
The pattern held long enough to become policy. The same 100GB tier was eventually folded into a paid 365 Basic plan at $1.99 a month, and by 2018 Microsoft was offering OneDrive for Business free for up to three years to businesses mid-contract with Google, Box, and Dropbox.
First-order effects
- Users who join Bing Rewards get 100GB of OneDrive storage at essentially no effort, per The Verge's read of the deal — real capacity, unlike gimmick offers.
- Microsoft converts each claimant into an active Bing Rewards participant, tying storage perks to ongoing Bing search activity.
Second-order effects
- Google Drive and Dropbox face a rival using storage giveaways as an acquisition cost rather than a product line, pressuring their own free-tier economics.
- Users burned by the November unlimited-storage cut gain a reason to distrust standing free tiers generally, pushing loyalty toward whoever bundles storage with something they already do.
Third-order effects
- If the arc holds, consumer cloud storage stops being sold on raw gigabytes and becomes a hook for subscriptions and engagement programs — the endpoint visible in 365 Basic replacing the very 100GB tier this promotion gave away.
- Storage promotions become interchangeable across audiences: consumers get them via rewards programs, businesses via contract-switching incentives, both aimed at locking data into one ecosystem.
The trend: Cloud storage is shifting from a headline-capacity arms race to a conversion tool, with Microsoft trading gigabytes for search engagement and eventual subscription revenue.