Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 156 posts

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#91

Post by ramraj07 »

aabhay wrote: post #53

I’m a huge fan of dropbox, partially because I’m an enterprise user of all their features (including paper and transfer!). In addition to Discord, I feel that it is one of the few companies that has kept their product simple and streamlined. Even modern tools like Airtable, Notion, Miro and of course Slack feel bloated and complicated. It’s a genuine challenge for large organizations to maintain simplicity so I respe…

How the hell is slack more complicated than dropbox?? I didn't see Slack Paper, or Slack photos which they then comoletely and annoyingly dropped support for!

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#92

Post by jumhyn »

maxdata wrote: post #90

My company was largely run on dropbox as a crucial piece of infrastructure for many years before my arrival. As of a couple months ago, it has been cut out of our production pipeline entirely, but for many years, if you saw a digital out-of-home ad in certain places, it only got there because someone had added a media file and schedule to a dropbox folder. Looking back on it, it's pretty wild how much of their busine…

I worked in a research lab several years ago that used Dropbox as their version control system for all the data analysis scripts they wrote. It took a while but by the time I left I had convinced everyone to switch over to git.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#93

Post by Tagbert »

throwawaypop wrote: post #65
mehrdada wrote: post #15

Dropbox feels more bearucratic internally than Google, a company two orders of magnitude its size. I feel like it is a perfect case of all the “VC-style” advice of “CEO job changes every 6 months and you should adapt” going haywire; mistaking the focus to be building an abstract hierarchical HR org, while completely losing the ability, vision, or desire to build a product that people love. Reminds me of Steve Jobs’ q…

I think people just wanted a cloud solution to store and retrive files. Dropbox was one of the products that grew during the PC and digital wave. Then came "Google Drive" and nobody turned back to Dropbox after that.

The Google drive sync engine is a piece of slow buggy crap. Dropbox is rock solid. No comparison.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#94

Post by arduinomancer »

bane wrote: post #77

Dropbox sells one thing: easy to use drive space in the cloud. Dropbox failed to do one thing: give people compelling reasons to put a growing amount of stuff there so they would keep paying for and upgrading their accounts. Imagine these scenarios: - A user dumps their photos into dropbox and automatically is granted a flickr quality site with all of their photos there and organized. They can add metadata in the sit…

This is bang-on.

You need to build an ecosystem/experience around the files rather than just straight up only doing storage.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#95

Post by harryh »

august125 wrote: post #85
wheels wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently uninstalled Dropbox after years of use. The upgrade nags were over the top, and the number-of-device limitations on the free plan made it no longer usable for me. I like the app, and would happily have paid something for it, but as a mostly private user, the lack of a plan between 2 GB / free and 2 TB / $10/month just didn't make sense. $3/month for 5 GB would have been an easy choice. Now I'm using SyncTh…

What really irritated me was the suddenly imposed three device sync limit. Being forced to pay for 2 TB when I didn't need any more space than I already had just to get my files on all my computers really rubbed me the wrong way. Like you, I wish there was a 5 GB / $3/month plan. On top of that, they're losing sight of the deep OS integration that made them so appealing to Steve Jobs. When a screenshot is automatical…

How many people do you think there are that would be willing to pay $3/month but not $10/month?

How many people who currently pay $10/month would drop down to a $3/month plan if given the option?

I'm fairly certain the math on this paints a clear picture: Offering a $3/month plan would cost them more than it makes them.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#96

Post by Spooky23 »

bane wrote: post #77

Dropbox sells one thing: easy to use drive space in the cloud. Dropbox failed to do one thing: give people compelling reasons to put a growing amount of stuff there so they would keep paying for and upgrading their accounts. Imagine these scenarios: - A user dumps their photos into dropbox and automatically is granted a flickr quality site with all of their photos there and organized. They can add metadata in the sit…

Dropbox had a great, gmail like onboarding process for free users. And they made graphics people happy with their sync tech.

Then they stopped and focused on segmentation to chisel more margin and missed the boat. It’s a shame.

The enterprise sales force that I dealt was a bunch of overpaid folks who didn’t seem motivated to sell. Microsoft and Google gobbled up the enterprise market. And eventually, Adobe will steal the creatives too.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#97

Post by ByteJockey »

mullingitover wrote: post #80
throwawaypop wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people just wanted a cloud solution to store and retrive files. Dropbox was one of the products that grew during the PC and digital wave. Then came "Google Drive" and nobody turned back to Dropbox after that.

> Then came "Google Drive" and nobody turned back to Dropbox after that. I wish it were true, but neither Google nor Apple have the most basic, brain-dead feature: "Give me a link that I can give anyone, and they can download the thing without jumping through any hoops." They both require people receiving a file to jump through the hoop of having accounts with them in order to do this most basic action. It's the reas…

I've defaulted to making s3 buckets public for that.

Admittedly, the s3 console isn't the easiest thing to navigate if you aren't used to it, but I don't really need to do it very often.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#98

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

bane wrote: post #77

Dropbox sells one thing: easy to use drive space in the cloud. Dropbox failed to do one thing: give people compelling reasons to put a growing amount of stuff there so they would keep paying for and upgrading their accounts. Imagine these scenarios: - A user dumps their photos into dropbox and automatically is granted a flickr quality site with all of their photos there and organized. They can add metadata in the sit…

Also, I can't help but wonder if they would do better after some mergers, like with BackBlaze, Box, and some other smallish storage-focused companies.

If you're going to be a storage company, why not be the biggest you can...

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#99

Post by partoa »

bane wrote: post #77

Dropbox sells one thing: easy to use drive space in the cloud. Dropbox failed to do one thing: give people compelling reasons to put a growing amount of stuff there so they would keep paying for and upgrading their accounts. Imagine these scenarios: - A user dumps their photos into dropbox and automatically is granted a flickr quality site with all of their photos there and organized. They can add metadata in the sit…

My sentiments exactly. I, however, see more value along the lines of file related workflows and third party apps. Google Drive now has third party apps. Workflows on the other hand, I have only seen in NextCloud.

Third party apps would have helped them remain focused. That ship has, almost certainly, sailed though.

Re: Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

#100

Post by beamatronic »

mullingitover wrote: post #80
throwawaypop wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people just wanted a cloud solution to store and retrive files. Dropbox was one of the products that grew during the PC and digital wave. Then came "Google Drive" and nobody turned back to Dropbox after that.

> Then came "Google Drive" and nobody turned back to Dropbox after that. I wish it were true, but neither Google nor Apple have the most basic, brain-dead feature: "Give me a link that I can give anyone, and they can download the thing without jumping through any hoops." They both require people receiving a file to jump through the hoop of having accounts with them in order to do this most basic action. It's the reas…

It sounds like the original YouSendIt product!
Post reply on HN