31–40 of 45 posts
I find Dropbox's approach middle of the road. I think the thing that annoys me the most is that the button that does what you are specifically trying to do is de-emphasized. It shows a lack of respect.
I think the core problem is that you lose that available space even if you paid out through the month/year. I have a suspicion this is an intentional dark pattern to keep people from downgrading and not some weird engineering constraint. So it’s a bad and maybe unethical user experience. Why couldn’t it be: “Thank you for using Dropbox, you have access to your 1t (or whatever) until X date, after that your files will…
So if I pay for a year, then cancel 6 months in, I lose my 1tb immediately? Do they give you a pro-rated refund for canceling? Otherwise (unless I'm misunderstanding your comment) that seems like they aren't giving you what you paid for.
Personally, I'm done with these kind of mind hacks. While not quite in Facebook 'Your friends will miss you' territory, it still feels quite scummy. They belong to an era of the Internet where growth and retention stats trump all. Just let me cancel. Oh, and if you cancel and are over the limit and login, Dropbox will give you a nag screen and hold your files hostage till you cough up. How this is in any way an examp…
What if you rent a 2000 sqft apartment and don’t renew your lease because of price. You decide to move to a smaller apartment with cheaper rent or move back in with your parents where rents free. Can you keep your stuff in the original apartment? I don’t disagree with you but your analogy is flawed. At least Dropbox keeps your stuff to reclaim whereas a landlord would kindly shuffle it to the garbage while cleaning y…
i don’t remember what the nag screen says, but saying that they’re still paying for hard drive space for me would feel a bit more straightforward and genuine.
I cancelled my New York Times digital subscription this year. It required a phone call and talking to two individuals. Of course I couldn't do it the very first time I tried because I wasn't in a position to make a phone call at the time. I find Dropbox's approach middle of the road. I think the thing that annoys me the most is that the button that does what you are specifically trying to do is de-emphasized. It show…
I think the core problem is that you lose that available space even if you paid out through the month/year. I have a suspicion this is an intentional dark pattern to keep people from downgrading and not some weird engineering constraint. So it’s a bad and maybe unethical user experience. Why couldn’t it be: “Thank you for using Dropbox, you have access to your 1t (or whatever) until X date, after that your files will…
Off topic, but I wonder how much money they are not getting by offering a lower priced tier of like 5$ per month?
Edit: summary cropped from a recent discussion where someone said "[Ewww Microsoft]"
Dropbox: $99/year for 1TB - or $199/year if I want "Smart Sync" which is the same basic thing as [OneDrive's] Files On Demand.
Google Drive: $99/year for 1TB, unclear if it supports the same kind of online-only files.
Box.com, but I could only get 100GB of storage for $10/month; for more I'd need to have 3+ accounts on their Business plan at $15/month/account.
Sugarsync, 250GB for $10/month or 500GB for $19/month.
SpiderOak ONE, known for security & encryption, $9/month for 400GB or $12/month for 2TB.
OwnCloud, free except for buying a NAS or setting up and powering an always-on home server to run it (or paying for online storage and a hosted VM), along with my time dinking around with it and troubleshooting.
Something based on some kind of S3 clients. See above about my time setting it up, dinking around with it and troubleshooting. Also, using the Cloudberrylab backup software calculator, storing and accessing 600GB in S3 would cost at least $13-14/month.
I think the core problem is that you lose that available space even if you paid out through the month/year. I have a suspicion this is an intentional dark pattern to keep people from downgrading and not some weird engineering constraint. So it’s a bad and maybe unethical user experience. Why couldn’t it be: “Thank you for using Dropbox, you have access to your 1t (or whatever) until X date, after that your files will…
Personally, I'm done with these kind of mind hacks. While not quite in Facebook 'Your friends will miss you' territory, it still feels quite scummy. They belong to an era of the Internet where growth and retention stats trump all. Just let me cancel. Oh, and if you cancel and are over the limit and login, Dropbox will give you a nag screen and hold your files hostage till you cough up. How this is in any way an examp…
What if you rent a 2000 sqft apartment and don’t renew your lease because of price. You decide to move to a smaller apartment with cheaper rent or move back in with your parents where rents free. Can you keep your stuff in the original apartment? I don’t disagree with you but your analogy is flawed. At least Dropbox keeps your stuff to reclaim whereas a landlord would kindly shuffle it to the garbage while cleaning y…
As for your own analogy, if you abandon your property during an eviction the landlord's only option would be to dump it as there is no incentive to take the property as a means to recoup losses. Dropbox should just do the same or provide some mechanism for permanent deletion on cancelation or else the data hostage stigma will remain.
Edit: I also agree that this is one of the worse forms of dark patterns that subpar marketing teams force their engineers to implement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I pay for a year, then cancel 6 months in, I lose my 1tb immediately? Do they give you a pro-rated refund for canceling? Otherwise (unless I'm misunderstanding your comment) that seems like they aren't giving you what you paid for.
Yes, or at least that was my experience a few months ago. I’d have to check if anything changed.