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The new Dropbox

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: The new Dropbox

#391

Post by rconti »

turdnagel wrote: post #71
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…

I'm considering the same thing and switching to iCloud Drive as my family is heavily invested into the Apple ecosystem. The next versions of iOS and macOS will support shared folders, which was the one thing holding me back. Also really annoyed about the price change. It seems to me like they know most people don't use the full 1 TB, or anywhere near it, so it's practically meaningless to extend to 2 TB. You really h…

I recently started paying for iCloud for phone backups because it's so damn cheap, and I don't leave my desktop on (with itunes running) often enough for our phones to backup to anymore.

Only thing preventing me from moving from free Dropbox, is just the hassle. I guess I should. Also, I sync Dropbox to my Synology NAS, but it's not for any purpose other than just having another copy Just In Case.

Re: The new Dropbox

#392

Post by diegof79 »

I used to be a Dropbox fan: it was the first program installed on a new machine, and I recommend it to friends and family.

However, I never converted to a paying user. That seems to be contradictory and maybe another data point of how hard could be growing a global user base.

I live in Argentina. Here any subscription in USD should be considered carefully. Each time that I evaluated to become a paying Dropbox customer, I decided that the cost/value equation didn't work for me:

- Photos: Google Photos works very well on mobile, and they give you unlimited space (if you are willing to sacrifice picture quality).

- Files: I end using iCloud or Drive for the occasional file sharing in the cloud. When I evaluated subscribing to Dropbox for my father -which is also an Office user- the Microsoft Office365 (that includes OneDrive) was much more convenient.

- Backup: A huge chunk of my work files are in Drive (because of GSuite for companies), or in Github. The rest (like iPhone Backup) is by default upload to iCloud.

- Mobile Apps: Before iCloud, many apps included the option to sync with Dropbox (and they created an API for that). But after the iCloud improvements, now that option is missing from most of the iOS apps.

- Paper: it's a great idea, and for a moment I imagined that Dropbox was going to compete with design sharing tools (like InVision). But when I tried Paper, it wasn't enough to do the switch.

I hope that Dropbox is able to find a good product strategy because I used to love their product. This announcement and my personal experience make me think that they are facing a turning point.

Re: The new Dropbox

#393

Post by treve »

pwthornton wrote: post #351
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

Just use iCloud. I switched a few years ago. It works really well. Unless you are using Dropbox with a team or a corporate environment, iCloud is better. I use a combo of iCloud (love the desktop syncing between my machines btw), and Google File Stream for team documents.

I assume you're only using Mac devices though right?

Re: The new Dropbox

#394

Post by ndarwincorn »

0x906 wrote: post #280
vvoyer wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After receiving an email like: > This is all for just $20.88 more a year 1. I never asked for anything more 2. you still charge me for more at a higher price I just bought 2TB data on iCloud, moving everything there. Now I will have good photo application with face recognition which is awesome. Do not expect any move from Dropbox to make your personal life better, they won't. They are going towards enterprise custome…

I self-hosted a Nextcloud installation and used 2x 4TB drives. The first is full dedicated to the Nextcloud use while the second is rsync-ed to the first every night. Then I deleted my 8 years old Dropbox account. Currently my only cloud provider is iCloud just for the photos, contacts, iwhatever backup.

Assuming the second drive is always connected to the machine & on, why are you opting for that nightly sync vs. mirroring the two disks in raid1?

Re: The new Dropbox

#395

Post by hbosch »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #321
hbosch wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Use iCloud that's it if you're in the apple word. Does iCloud automatically save versions yet? One of the default features, IMO, of the Dropbox/Box/WorkDocs/OneDrive world is that a history of saved versions is easily accessible for a single document. Last I checked, iCloud didn't have this one feature.

I think this may be something that needs to be exposed at the application level, e.g., iWork's "Browse All Versions" feature: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205411 I see this in other apps as well; I just checked iA Writer, for instance, and it shows me versions on iOS. (And, of course, if you have Time Machine enabled on your Mac, you can browse versions for everything on that system, but I don't know how that in…

That means it's a local, Mac-only feature. I like having access to old versions in the cloud, partially because my other computer is a desktop PC.

Re: The new Dropbox

#396

Post by miguelmota »

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…

I agree with the sentiment that dropbox is doing too many things that don't make the most sense but sometimes the company doesn't have a choice but to try new things to extend the userbase into different markets because that's what VCs are demanding and expecting them to do. VCs want a 10x return and not a 2x return on a lifestyle business.

Re: The new Dropbox

#397

Post by qwerty9876 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #63
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)?

99% of client-side rendered pages would provide a superior user experience with server-side render. SSR is what the web was designed for after all. CSR is merely fashionable, not better.

it's not a webpage. It's an application that happens to run on browser platform.

If you downloaded a regular software and the exe file was 5MB that would be considered small nowadays, yet if a web application fetches that in JS it's considered large.

(sidenote: not defending the gifs they're just idiotic)

Re: The new Dropbox

#398

Post by xfer »

dangus wrote: post #368
bitL wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get your own NextCloud instance; you'd need to pay for some Linux VPS (<$5/month); installation takes 5 minutes and you have clients for all major desktop/mobile platforms.

Ultimately, after that $5/month plus storage costs, you still have to handle security patching, DR, and everything an infrastructure engineer does all on your own. Not to knock it, I think it's a great option. It's just not for everyone, not for the dentist next door or anything.

Hetzner provides nextcloud storage for €3. I have used their storage boxes before and they were good.

Re: The new Dropbox

#399

Post by felideon »

Majromax wrote: post #162
solatic wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? When you're a startup, you do something new and (hopefully) do it well. You get customers and you grow. Eventually you become an established company. You do your thing really well, and customers are happy to pay you the price you ask. You make a healthy profit margin and times are good. Competition takes notice. You keep doing things well, but yo…

> You keep doing things well, but your competition has a second-mover advantage. They get to work with newer tooling, no legacy codebase, all the benefits of a fresh start. They start to win your customers away from you. ... so you're saying the first-mover begins coasting and fails to invest in its product, while the plucky upstart puts in novel research and development. That might be common, but it hardly seems ine…

It's called the Innovator's Dilemma.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

Re: The new Dropbox

#400

Post by jamesb93 »

liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

I had the same inclination as you. Dropbox was cooking my 2015 Macbook Pro. What I can tell you might reduce research time.

Google Drive has no differential sync. Any changes you make re-upload the whole file. This is a hard no for me. Also Google.

I moved to Sync[0]. The pricing tier was more what I wanted (500GB). They support symlinks, differential syncing, selective sync as well as a 'Vault' for storing files in the cloud but not on your machine. I think it's end-to-end encrypted as well, not going to commit to saying anything specific in that regard. The Mac app is also a lot better, I find it spinning up a lot less for me and its a lot lighter in general. To be fair though, even with iCloud I get my fans whirring up when I start uploading lots of changes.

I've also heard good things about pCloud[1] but I don't see any reason to change my workflow now after have to already change it.

[0] - https://www.sync.com/ [1] - https://www.pcloud.com/

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