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Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

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Re: Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

#32
post #20

Dropbox is great, and it's one of the few companies I don't mind pimping out. However, even I have my limits, and "the best 30 comments on this post explaining why Dropbox is awesome will be given 5GB, of extra storage on their account" crosses the line. It's just ego stroking and obvious advertising at that point. If you must, why not reward people with the best ideas to improve dropbox or who have unique ways of le…

Dropbox did something interesting with "best comments" on this reddit thread. Reddit spoofed our logo, and we did it to celebrate. http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dm8ep/ohai_reddi...

The best comment was about interesting ways to use dropbox. Some even I hadn't heard of. The second comment thread was recursive actually, showing how awesome reddit can be.

These things are more fun than serious. Throwing around GBs to people that like Dropbox is really common (see Dropquest, http://dropbox.com/edu http://dropbox.com/free ). I wouldn't read too much into it here; folks just thought it would be nice and fun.

btw I work for Dropbox. I ran that reddit mini campaign.

Re: Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

#33

Did they add yet that new feature where the software is actually updated when they release a new version? As opposed to manual update, or wait 6 months until the autoupdater decides it's time to wake up.

The desktop clients update themselves regularly and have for some time.

Re: Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

#34
I really like Dropbox - the ubiquity and ease of use are great.

There's one annoying hangup tho, and this is what so far has kept me from paying for a great service I would otherwise immediately sign up for a paid account:

When you share a file/folder in your Dropbox with someone the space used counts against BOTH your quota AND the other person's quota.

This means that even if I am paying $10/month for a 50GB account, if I share a folder that has 2GB of data with a coworker or friend that only has a free account, that share immediately fills their entire quota.

Dropbox's only answer to this problem is that you should sign up for "Dropbox for teams." This is $795/year for 5 users with a shared quota. Not really an acceptable solution in my opinion.

Re: Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, however in a fast moving environment, that's only of little consolation if I have to look back 10 days and 20 versions to find the missing content. It becomes a trade off: do I do the work again or aim for the perfect merge. Unfortunately, the first often wins.

... Use Google docs.

True, but the formatting options aren't very good. I know, I'm picky, but it just doesn't cut it. It works, but isn't perfect.

Re: Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

#36
post #34

I really like Dropbox - the ubiquity and ease of use are great. There's one annoying hangup tho, and this is what so far has kept me from paying for a great service I would otherwise immediately sign up for a paid account: When you share a file/folder in your Dropbox with someone the space used counts against BOTH your quota AND the other person's quota. This means that even if I am paying $10/month for a 50GB accoun…

On the other hand, if sharing didn't count towards both parties' quotas, then you could just create an army of sockpuppets, each of whom shares their 2GB folders with you. I understand that the Dropbox people don't want to make it that easy.

Re: Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion

#37
I'd say Dropbox can be fun for quite unusal reason - their software. Custom-built CPython with encrypted .pyc files (some of them are free software, so there's a known-plaintext) and without any useful introspection modules left. Aren't this fun?

Disclaimer: Regrettably, Dropbox TOS forbids reverse-engineering, so I didn't dare to violate them. ;) (Even though local laws here, in Russia permit some limited reverse-engineering for some conditions.)

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