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The new Dropbox

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: The new Dropbox

#131

Post by arkitaip »

andrewjrhill wrote: post #116
jacobcohen11 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's because they were expanding too much and hiring too many people

It's a lack of focus on increasing sales throughput. They should have looked to resolve bottlenecks between when a lead first hits their website and when a sale is finalised. There's always something along that process that is poor and holding back the rest of the process. An increase in throughput = increased sales.

You don't think their funnel is optimized already? The truth is that Google and Microsoft have the mind shares and products that integrate well with their respective eco systems already. Google Drive and OneDrive just work and are highly affordable already.

Re: The new Dropbox

#132

Post by pwinnski »

thinkharderdev wrote: post #94
mbreese wrote: post #65

Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? I use Slack and Zoom often, but I have never once thought — gee I really wish I could just open up this presentation in Dropbox directly into my Zoom meeting. I just don’t see the integration working in that direction. Sure, Dropbox should make sure that it’s available as a provider to save/open files for other programs — that make sense. The integ…

They were losing ~$500m a year (and growing) doing one thing and doing it well.

I have long thought that one of Steve Jobs' biggest errors was in telling Dropbox "that's a feature, not a company." It sure seemed like he was really wrong, but if Dropbox can't make money, maybe he was right after all.

Re: The new Dropbox

#133

Post by yankeehue »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #111
SamuelAdams wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? It's simple: no company wants to pour money into bugfixes. Managers / PMs / "product owners" who advocate for big, new changes (something like "integrate services" to "drive user engagement") get funding. In a business view, if you're standing still you're at risk of being left behind. As long as software is tied to a company, it will never remai…

> In a business view, if you're standing still you're at risk of being left behind. On a related but perhaps off topic note; Is that wrong? I agree with everything you've said. Yet, I do wonder, is that business decision wrong? I've not spent much effort on the business side in my life, but from the outside I feel like I agree with their statement. Maybe not so much as in the "left behind" mantra, but more specifical…

> It seems to me that being a one product company runs a risk of another company choking you out in various ways.

One possible solution then is to change your company to be a multi-product company, instead of adding new-product features into your one product.

Re: The new Dropbox

#134

Post by denimnerd42 »

AntiqueFig wrote: post #128
microtonal wrote: post #11

Me and my wife ended both ended our Dropbox Plus subscriptions last weekend (after being paying users for five years or so). As a side-effect, my mom also cancelled her subscription (since she was using it to share photos with us). The primary reasons: - Constant nagging in the user interface to upgrade to Dropbox Pro or Dropbox Business. Don't want it, don't need it. - Accumulation of a lot of UI clutter over the ye…

> Dropping support for file systems outside ext4. One of my machines uses Linux on ZFS Well if you're using ZFS you can create a zvol for your dropbox folder and format it in ext4 and it'll work: https://pthree.org/2012/12/21/zfs-administration-part-xiv-zv...

I love this guy's series on ZFS.

Re: The new Dropbox

#136

Post by gildas »

FunnyLookinHat wrote: post #29

The blog has a loading icon? It took 10-15 seconds to render for me. Anyone else think this client-side app trend has gotten in the way of recognizing a great case for a server-side render (or even a cached page)?

This page weights 30MB because of the images, server-side rendering won't help.

Re: The new Dropbox

#137

Post by FullyFunctional »

sethhochberg wrote: post #86
rc-1140 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally what I value is just basic cloud storage with a decent automatic sync. Similarly. That was the biggest appeal to me back when I first discovered them and they were giving out bonus space for their free plan depending on the number of people that any one user referred. On top of this shift, didn't Dropbox just limit the number of computers one could have their data synchronized between? These moves seem b…

The limit on number of syncing devices has me exploring other options - I'm an oldschool Dropbox user, I got most of my storage space with referrals years ago, and I consume about 6GB on the free plan. I don't need 2TB. I don't really even want 2TB, and I'm certainly not going to pay over $100 a year for 2TB. I'd pay some smaller amount of money for the ability to sync additional devices without storage that I'll nev…

You (and I) were definitely part of the problem, but limiting the number of devices was brilliant on their part as it forced me (and many others) to think hard about my options. Unlike you however, I came to the conclusion that 1) Dropbox are far superior to the competition for me (eg., I regularily build and test out of a Dropbox folder), 2) I actually get enormous value of it. $120 (they raised the price) is worth it.

I am also unimpressed with this new desktop app which solves a problem I don't have, but as long as their core syncing tech. remains functional, I just want them succeed.

Re: The new Dropbox

#139

Post by iguy »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #111
SamuelAdams wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? It's simple: no company wants to pour money into bugfixes. Managers / PMs / "product owners" who advocate for big, new changes (something like "integrate services" to "drive user engagement") get funding. In a business view, if you're standing still you're at risk of being left behind. As long as software is tied to a company, it will never remai…

> In a business view, if you're standing still you're at risk of being left behind. On a related but perhaps off topic note; Is that wrong? I agree with everything you've said. Yet, I do wonder, is that business decision wrong? I've not spent much effort on the business side in my life, but from the outside I feel like I agree with their statement. Maybe not so much as in the "left behind" mantra, but more specifical…

I agree. I know why humans must diversify, to avoid having all their eggs in one basket, but why is it obvious that companies should? Their owners should invest in other things, but maybe it's better to admit that a given company is a bet on a particular niche, and if it dies, it dies.

In fact I'd go a bit further, and say that if every company seems to become a conglomerate, that's a sign that something is broken in how a country works. If it's advantageous for two companies doing completely different things to be under one name, one roof, then it's likely that their real skill is in something else, like political connections, not in making whatever products it is they make. And that's unhealthy.

Re: The new Dropbox

#140

Post by cmg »

If I didn't need Dropbox for client work, I'd be dropping my Pro account today. They sent a nice flowery email [0] yesterday talking about some of the new features.

I decided this was a good reminder to go and check my Dropbox security settings and logged into the website -- which I rarely ever do. Only then did I see that my yearly price was increasing by nearly $21. [1] That should have been made very clear in the email.

[0] https://imgur.com/S04UAtL [1] https://imgur.com/Dq4tzW8

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