Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#191

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #40

CPLX wrote: post #3

This seems like a good time to resurface the worlds best Quora answer, by Michael Wolfe. Answering “Why is Dropbox more popular than other tools with similar functionality?”: Well, let's take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You'd put your stuff in it. It would sync. They built that. Why didn't anyone else build that? I have no idea. "B…

> "But," you may ask, "so much more you could do! What about task management, calendaring, customized dashboards, virtual white boarding. More than just folders and files!" > > No, shut up. People don't use that crap. They just want a folder. A folder that syncs. This argument is a good one but it only covers the rise of Dropbox. We are now in a different era. Dropbox's functionality is now table stakes and not somet…

I don't think the argument is irrelevant. For most utilities, people use your software because it is the best at doing one core thing. I don't think this changes just because OS vendors start bundling half-assed versions of your idea. Pour your resources into focus rather than de-focus. Spend your development effort on fixing bugs, best-in-class cross-platform support, and other things that the OS vendors won't do.

Instead, everyone succumbs to the urge to feature-cram their way to differentiation, so we get chat functionality in your navigation software, location sharing in your music app, and team management in your paint program.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#192

Post by ac29 » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

thirdsun wrote: post #155

While I’m not liking the direction Dropbox is taking I still haven’t found anything that rivals it as general purpose online storage and meets the following requirements: - can be used as cloud backup destination - I use Arq[0] to backup a huge music library close to 1TB in daily intervals to my Dropbox. I have never used Dropbox‘ official app. - since my music is located in a place of my , an external drive which mi…

Google Drive is the only thing that comes to mind that ticks all those boxes. You'd need to use 3rd party tools for some of those tasks, but sounds like you're already doing that with Dropbox.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#193

Post by pyreal » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

I love the app. I started using it immediately upon seeing it - then went looking for it all over my system when it disappeared. Makes using Dropbox much easier on my Mac - and I love being able to create Google Docs right in Dropbox from it.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#194

Post by josteink » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

greenleafjacob wrote: post #189

wukerplank wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's part of the OS, it's probably not cross-platform... I still use Dropbox because it runs everywhere: NAS, Windows, Mac and my phone. (At work we use Google Drive, it it just sucks. File Stream is super buggy and the web UI lacks a lot of productivity features.)

Unfortunately Dropbox recently dropped support for certain Linux file systems like XFS, BTRFS, etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17732912

And lost me as a customer for it.

Effectively Dropbox is no longer the universal solution guaranteed to work everywhere, which was the reason I chose them before. They deliberately killed off their unique selling point.

These days I run Nextcloud on iOS, Windows and Linux and it doesn't complain about ZFS.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#195

Post by slouch » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

I don't care at all what Dropbox adds to their app on my computer, because I don't use it. It runs, and I ignore it.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#196

Post by enraged_camel » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #172

gwbas1c wrote: post #59

I've worked for a major Dropbox competitor for almost a decade. Shenanigans like this don't surprise me. This happens because product managers, developers, designers, ect, like to get creative. They think that they need to invent something new; AND, we (in the industry) see how a certain group of users is constantly confused by the files and folders concept. Usually, cooler heads prevail and remind everyone why our c…

> This happens because product managers, developers, designers, ect, like to get creative. They think that they need to invent something new Capitalism is supposed to be about efficient allocation of resources. Cutting down the fat. Taking away materiel and capital from people who squander it and giving it to people who can put it to good work. How come that those product managers, developers, designers, etc. all hav…

Capitalism's prime directive is growth. Efficiency matters only when two conditions are met:

1. There is sufficient competition

2. There is resource scarcity

In the current context, the first condition holds true for Dropbox, but the second does not. There was a commenter here on HN a few months ago who works in VC, and he/she was saying that VCs currently have too much money and they are desperately looking for things to throw that money at. That is the opposite of resource scarcity.

Make no mistake though: if and when we get the next economic crash, I think we will see a drastic shift in how tech companies operate. I suspect that a _lot_ of fat will be cut, then.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#197

Post by mad182 » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #17

Dropbox is two things: Cheap cloud file storage with an API, and a desktop app. The desktop app used to be a glorified FUSE app that worked well (except on ARM Linux for some reason) and got out of your way. Now Dropbox has decided it's time to ruin the desktop app in an effort to chase conversions. This strategy will fail. Fortunately their cloud storage backend still works (unless it bugs you that they just increas…

Expandrive has a really shit pricing/marketing.

When I switched from Linux to Mac for a while some years ago, I felt the lack of easily mounting sftp as gnome does. So I found Expandrive did that very well. $39.95 seemed a bit steep for such a simple thing, but whatever, it was working great and I paid that. Few months later came out the next version and it turned out upgrades were not included, and now it's $49.95. I thought - whatever, I'll just keep using the old version because it was working quickly and flawlessly. Then all of a sudden previous version had minor update and it started lagging and randomly disconnecting. Meanwhile they kept spamming my email about sales and offers, ~20 times since then, pitching how it's dramatically faster now etc. I can't prove they purposely fucked up the old version, but it seemed really weird when it started to have problems right after new and more expensive one came out, and I'm not planning to use it ever again.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#198

Post by criddell » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

plopz wrote: post #180

pandalicious wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify vs Google Play Music is the perfect showcase for this. They both get the job done but Spotify is better in so many small ways. Meanwhile, instead of being improved, GPM is in the process of being abandoned for the new shiny thing, Youtube Music.

I've been looking for an alternative to Google Play Music. I only use it to sync my albums from my pc to my phone and play them offline in the car. Does Spotify have a feature like that? Edit: It looks like you have to pay for it and the music has to be in playlists. Not quite what I'd like.

I believe Spotify allows you to upload 10,000 tracks.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#199

Post by didip » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #40

CPLX wrote: post #3

This seems like a good time to resurface the worlds best Quora answer, by Michael Wolfe. Answering “Why is Dropbox more popular than other tools with similar functionality?”: Well, let's take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You'd put your stuff in it. It would sync. They built that. Why didn't anyone else build that? I have no idea. "B…

> "But," you may ask, "so much more you could do! What about task management, calendaring, customized dashboards, virtual white boarding. More than just folders and files!" > > No, shut up. People don't use that crap. They just want a folder. A folder that syncs. This argument is a good one but it only covers the rise of Dropbox. We are now in a different era. Dropbox's functionality is now table stakes and not somet…

What about killing on-prem NAS/SAN or sell a high performance on-prem blob store? Every single one sucks and requires a specialized Devops team.

I think the whole premise of files and folders are far from dead, just gotta look from different angles.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#200

Post by Ensorceled » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #151

Ensorceled wrote: post #85

Yeah, I had this new interface popup yesterday at random, same time as I got a notification that a file had been uploaded. I didn't click on the notification, Dropbox seems to have used this as a hook to launch the preloaded new application. WTF, Dropbox? I've recently unsubscribed from Dropbox Pro, in part because I was no longer using it that much and, mostly, because of the non-stop, incessant, annoying pleas for…

I'll never understand this impulse to hard sell your already-paying customers on more shit. It's like once these companies start facing adversity, they just can't help themselves from trying to squeeze things from people who are already giving them money. It lends this sort of 'captive-audience' vibe to the whole affair. Like, sure, publicize your higher tiers, make their value propositions such that I might say, "Hu…

I contrast 1Password, which sent me an email on their opted in Channel telling me about their new Team feature, with Evernote which added a “chat” button and had it constantly pop up along with a request to upgrade to business. Worse, I hide the button in settings and it reappeared at least twice now.

With DropBox, when ever I logged in on the web interface, they would redirect me to a business upgrade landing page, in the best dark pattern tradition it took a bit to figure out how to get back to my folders.