I can see the meeting now: the Microsoft marketing team, all huddled around a dreary conference room table, puzzled by the slow uptake of its paid-for online docs service Office 365. "It's clearly not Google," said Bob, seemingly unaware that Google Docs is both a free, and superior product. "What we need is a hook, something that says 'hey, look at how carefree and hip Office 365 is... like yolo, but with less Zac Efron.'"

Trevor, who had only been half-listening to the conversation while playing with a puppy in Kinectimals on his Lumia 950 phone, rose to his feet and exclaimed: "unlimited storage! It's like, these guys over there have some storage, but we'll have all the storage."

"Genius," said Bob. "It's like Microsoft is so hip, it doesn't even care about the practicalities of offering unlimited storage to a technically savvy audience."

"How much is this gonna cost?" asked George from finance. Bob glared at him. "We're creating the future of Office here, George! Don't give me any of your bureaucratic mumbo jumbo! I want this done, and I want it done now... right, good meeting everyone, I make that lunch."

And so it was that Microsoft would offer "unlimited cloud storage" to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a substantial step up from the 15GB that Google offers as standard for free. Inevitably, this offer was abused and then some. In a blog post published late yesterday, Microsoft has announced that it is reining in its unlimited offer after some enterprising individuals uploaded over 75TB of data, or 14,000 times the user average.

Clearly, this is not a financially acceptable situation, particularly as the unlimited service cost just £7.99 ($9.99) per month, or £79.99 ($99.99) per year. Rather than buy more drives to store the rapidly climbing amounts of data, Microsoft is downgrading both paid and free Office 365 services. Those on the "unlimited" plan will now receive just 1TB of storage. If you have more than 1TB in your OneDrive, you will have one year to back it up elsewhere.

The old 100GB and 200GB plans will no longer be offered to new customers, but old customers will be able to continue to use the service. These lower tiers will be replaced with a 50GB plan for $1.99 (UK pricing TBC, but probably ~£1.50) per month in 2016. Meanwhile, free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15GB to 5GB for all users, current and new. The 15GB camera roll storage bonus is also being discontinued. All changes will come into effect at the start of 2016.

"Instead of focusing on extreme backup scenarios, we want to remain focused on delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users," reads the Microsoft blog post. Those that want out after the unlimited storage gravy train comes to a stop can apply for a pro-rated refund. Sadly, there's no word on the fate of either Bob or Trevor.