Why is OneDrive so terrible?

You answer as if OP didn't understand the default behavior of OneDrive. They understand it perfectly. They are asking why it sucks?

The current functionality works entirely against the best interests of the user and that it is not at all intuitive.

On my PC's system, Windows saves files in a hierarchy that includes OneDrive by default, even though I never installed the OneDrive app. Even newly created files somebody shared to my pc via bluetooth or some other means automatically save to the cloud.

The UI is a mess. I have a Terabyte of paid storage, yet if I want to share anything with a non-technical person I have to upload those files to a more straightforward venue, unless I want to create a tutorial just for them on how to use it.

I am currently need to share photos people have sent me of a close relative who just died. It would be nice to save them all to a dedicated OneDrive folder and just send everybody the link where they can see my images and share their own, but if I grant them that access, they are also able to subtract files from the self-same folder, potentially deleting them not only fromsthe cloud but from my local devices when syncing occurs.

The photo management is abysmal. The captioning tool is buried in a menu and the captions it creates are only visible in certain views, if the user even notices them, since they appear written in small default font in a tiny field.

This doesn't even begin to address the issues with creating albums, which can be shared, but not downloaded. The recipient has to individually select each photo they want to save locally. MS didn't even include a "select all" option.

You say you are an advisor. It is perfectly fine to add a detailed explanation advising lurkers as to how OneDrive works (or rather, doesn't work) after answering OP's question, "Why is OneDrive so terrible?" but you ignored the question so as to be the first person who answered, stealing focus from the original problem for clicks.

I hate having to agree with you, but this is what I finally did. One drive is a decent price, but the utility of the service continued to shift more from an end user focus experienced to a provider focused service. I had been a one drive loyalist for many years but slowly started taking files out of their cloud, last year I finally “cut their cord”… I do think they are just trying to focus on corporate use and security … it is what it is…. But I sure do miss the pre 2020 one drive, I travelled the world in full coincidence all my data was an internet connection away.

I purchased a portable hdd for long term storage, a portable ssd for my weekly/monthly backups and use a 1/2gb thumb drive I share across my surface devices . It cost me around 200$ all sandisk (eBay and Best Buy purchases) . Which I did have to download drivers for windows devices , but over the course of several hours of actual work and several days of elapsed time… I’m very happy with my set up but disappointed in n Microsoft… slowly switching to Apple with new purchases (and my nephews are just laughing at me)… but I don’t trust Microsoft with bigger purchases anymore.

My team uses software that writes many hundreds of files whilst "building" an output. Once you see the output, you might spot an error and need to rebuild the output a minute later. Since Windows 11 pushes you to put everything under Documents, which is synced to OneDrive by default, naturally the useless OneDrive can't keep up and and the whole thing goes wrong very quickly. Consequently, we have gone back to the 1990s, with all our work arranged inside a C:\WORK folder! We can properly sync/backup that folder at a time of our choosing, using the software of our choice. Everything works nicely, and our backup is fully controllable. OneDrive is nothing but a danger to people's work and creativity.

Agreed. It's like buying a John Deere tractor. You pay for it but John Deere controls the software that controls the tractor. We buy the Windows PC but Microsoft controls the software and us.

I feel your frustration.

I was an early adopter for one drive and loved it. I used to be able to sync my one drive to a thumb drive, it was so cool.

I travelled the world with complete confidence of having all my files available…

And then…. The changes began to happen… changes that you could slowly see were meant to hijack my files to keep me in the Microsoft ecosystem. I also began to “lose files”.

I hung on as long as I could, but 2 years ago I stopped using one drive for any backup purposes, and it was a pain and time consuming to get those files out of the cloud. (I have worked with AwS and Google at work as well as Microsoft for many of the customers we have migrated to cloud… ms is the worst, and I predicted they would eventually take over AWS ( back in 2014 , and how stupid I was. )

My only guess is Microsoft is solely focused on corporate/ enterprise one drive use through MS365 … but I’ve taken the hint and I do not even use one drive for anything , completely uninstalled it.

I am not a Microsoft hater, but fast becoming one…. I own a surface laptop studio 2, surface laptop 4, surface laptop go, a surface book, 2 Xbox series x, a series. S and a one s…. Plus I bought for family a surface laptop 4, and 2 surface laptop Gos. So I was all in…. I’m slowly transitioning to Apple and Mac … but hoping Microsoft comes back …I’ve put them on a buying freeze…Including accessories … mostly because of one drive…. OneDrive shows they are either incompetent or intentional doing bad actions…