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Dropbox CTO Resigns

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Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#21

Post by bitL »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

Dropbox uses very sophisticated binary diff nobody else provides to minimize inbound/outbound traffic; this has some CPU/battery cost though. Competitors usually provide very dumb upload/download that might be less CPU/battery intense but much heavier on the bytes transferred. You simply might not be their target group.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#22

Post by hellofunk »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

I find the fairly recent Smart Sync feature to be really nice, has definitely made many things simpler and more flexible.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#23

Post by jonknee »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

Steve Jobs was early, but not wrong about Dropbox being a feature and not a product. I just want a folder that syncs extremely reliably, that's it. They've gone down the corporate rabbithole and now call themselves a "smart workspace" whatever that means.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#24

Post by defen »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

> once iCloud launches file sharing I'm 100% done with them.

Do you mean something other than this? https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/share-files-with-ic...

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#27

Post by aaomidi »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

And then the random client limit to 3. I've stopped using them since then.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#28

Post by deanCommie »

bitL wrote: post #21
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

Dropbox uses very sophisticated binary diff nobody else provides to minimize inbound/outbound traffic; this has some CPU/battery cost though. Competitors usually provide very dumb upload/download that might be less CPU/battery intense but much heavier on the bytes transferred. You simply might not be their target group.

Which may be a feature that belongs in the bygone era of lower network speeds and bandwidth limits.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#29

Post by keyle »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

My main issue with Dropbox is that the UI got lighter but not more useful, and I found some anti-patterns trying to share something with my friends without them being signed in dropbox.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#30

Post by gnicholas »

damnyou wrote: post #13
toxik wrote: post #10

Famously, Steve Jobs once called Dropbox “a feature, not a product.”

Maybe "products" are actually bad when they lock you into an ecosystem like the company Steve Jobs headed does.

I typically hear the categories as feature, product, platform (aka ecosystem). Apple is a platform/ecosystem. Dropbox is a feature/product, but definitely not a platform.

In SV, "just a feature" has a derogatory connotation, sort of like "lifestyle business". It causes people who run feature companies to try to get away from this characterization – even if it means stretching their business into something that it cannot easily become. This is especially true for features that have no moat, and which would therefore be Sherlocked [1] by companies like Apple.

1: https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-co...

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