Snapchat gave you nine years to fill their servers with your memories. Now they're charging you to keep them.

In September 2025, Snapchat announced it would end free storage for "Memories", the feature where users have saved more than one trillion photos and videos since 2016. Users who exceed 5GB now face a choice. Will you pay for storage plans, or watch your memories disappear after a 12-month grace period?

The company framed this as sustainability, not monetization. But behavioral economics tells a different story. It’s not a pricing change. It seems like economic coercion built on scientifically documented cognitive vulnerabilities.

Here's how it works, and why augmented reality (AR) glasses make it inescapable.

In 1979, psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published research that would eventually win a Nobel Prize. They discovered that humans feel losses approximately twice as intensely as equivalent gains. This phenomenon is called loss aversion.

When faced with losing something we already have, we experience psychological pain that far exceeds the pleasure we'd get from gaining something of equal value.

Richard Thaler extended this work with something he called the endowment effect. Once people own something (or perceive they own it), even digital photos, they value it more highly than identical items they don't own. The act of possession itself increases perceived value.

Snapchat's timeline appears to reveal how platforms exploit these vulnerabilities.

They gave users free storage for nine years. Let them accumulate thousands of photos representing birthdays, graduations, relationships, travel, daily moments they chose to save because they mattered. You may have seen something similar with Apple and Google’s storage limitations. They create emotional investment through time and accumulated experience.

Then, announce that the free service is ending. Provide a 12-month "grace period" before excess content disappears. Frame it as "supporting Snapchatters with more than 5GB of Memories"........

© Psychology Today