Today while trying to retrieve my documents stored on Windows Live SkyDrive, I came across a pop-up window asking me to fill out a little survey on how to help Microsoft to "improve SkyDrive" in the future. Half-way through the survey, I came across the following questions:

Seems like Microsoft is thinking of a new way to generate revenues from SkyDrive by offering users a paid subscription service with security features like data encryption, password protection, unlimited storage (or extra storage to 50GB depending on what they decide on), and automatic data backup from your PC to the cloud for a possible $50 per year (prices subject to change, of course).

Is it possible that this will be offered along with the Wave 3 launch? Is the extra features worth the price? This is considering that Microsoft is already offering 28.63GB for free to every Windows Live ID users and you can sign up for as many IDs as you want, and the fact that Live Mesh is already allowing automatic backup to the cloud for free. Additionally, Microsoft is already offering 50GB of Photo Backup through it's OneCare service for $50/year, will this addition by SkyDrive directly compete with OneCare, or replacing it? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Update: Just remembered that we hinted sometime last year about a possible SkyDrive desktop syncronisation, mentioning three new SkyDrive-related domains at Skydrivesync.com, Syncskydrive.com, and Messengerskydrive.com, all of which are currently redirecting to SkyDrive as well. Could this be related to the automatic back up feature?