2.24.22 UPDATE: We've been listening to your feedback, and we've made some design changes. We're releasing a new version that addresses the most common themes and makes it easier to achieve the previ...
Updated Feb 24, 2022
Version 12.0
Blog Post
How could you be "excited to share that we have begun rolling out the new Files On-Demand experience to all our customers using macOS 12.1 or later."? Forcing Files On-Demand was a total disaster. @Jack Nichols, the fact that it takes pages for you to describe how to get users back the the point they were at before this release was issued says it all. I spent 6 hours yesterday trying to get copies on all my 240 GB+ of files back on my hard drive so I could move them to another service, which I have now done. If "Always Keep on This Device" actually worked, it would have been much easier. I'm certain OneDrive servers have been burning up the last few weeks with users downloading files to get them back.
Such a poor implementation.
"See, wsrb1, clearly the problem is that you don't understand the wondrous beauty of forced Files-On-Demand. Because if you really did, you'd have no problem with this decision."
At least that's what all of MS's replies to people sound like to me, some variant of The Courtier's Reply, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_reply. Over and over the same tone: if you don't like this, it shows you don't understand it.
we do understand it. we also don't like it.