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Dropbox: Tech's Hottest Startup (2011)

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

#121

Post by jl6 »

ativzzz wrote: post #25

Never understood Dropbox, because as a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software. ... Not mine, but a HN classic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Yeah, this isn’t true at all. The Dropbox 2TB plan is cheaper than any cloud provider per-GB, and the sync algorithm gracefully handles a dozen+ edge cases that a naive pile of shell scripts would not.

I say this as a Linux user and paying Dropbox customer.

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

#122

Post by Xavdidtheshadow »

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…

> I feel that it is one of the few companies that has kept their product simple and streamlined

I'm a longitme paid Dropbox user for personal things and I have the exact _opposite_ feeling.

I want Dropbox to a be a single folder that is always synced perfectly to anywhere the app is. Things like link sharing, API access, "smart sync", etc are nice bonuses.

But, they had VC money (and are now public). They couldn't have been content with a complete product, there always needed to be _more_. I'm a paying user, but I still have "pay us more!" banners. They want me to connect my calendar [1]. They want me to use their writing suite with my (nonexistent) team. Their mac app has become increasingly invasive over the years. [2]

I constantly feel "left behind" by them as a customer. Their product motivation so far from the reason I joined them. Each year as my renewal date looms, I look for reasonable alternatives. Ultimately it has the best syncing and I've stuck with it, but I'd almost pay extra to get rid of all the extra junk that's "integrated" with the service now. Just sync my files.

[1]: https://cdn.zappy.app/b874d95cff539ec74d76e9dcd8679dad.png [2]: https://applehelpwriter.com/2016/07/28/revealing-dropboxs-di...

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

#123

Post by 8ytecoder »

Spooky23 wrote: post #96
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…

Yup, image versioning was a big deal. No one else had it at the time. Graphics people were indeed happy. I wonder if they tried to strike a deal with Adobe to back lightroom or photoshop with Dropbox.

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

#124

Post by 8ytecoder »

arduinomancer wrote: post #94
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.

They could have turned it into a platform. Provide APIs to back any number of applications.

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

#125

Post by kenhwang »

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…

The problem with all those things are: bandwidth. Storage is cheap, bandwidth is expensive. Dropbox wants you to stick stuff with them and then never touch it. Then they would only need slow disks and slow networks.

Once Dropbox tries to become Flickr/Soundcloud/Youtube, they have the same problem those services have: massive money loss. Playing media at scale is hard and expensive. Especially when Dropbox's niche is easily mutable data. Dropbox doesn't exactly have a massive advertising empire that could subsidize and take advantage of Youtube.

So the one place they did expand into is productivity tools. No one's going to massively share a text document/slideshow/spreadsheet, nor do those things eat very much bandwidth, and it plays into their mutability advantage very well.

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

#126

Post by innocenat »

I am a happy user of paid Dropbox, and I think many person are the same as me.

For me, OneDrive and Google Drive are not enough simply because of their terrible sync system. Back then when OneDrive was just launched the speed for me was absolutely horrible (like I currently have >600,000 files in my Dropbox. I don't know if other system can reliably deal with this many files, Dropbox has proved it to me that it can deal with my files on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

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

#127

Post by pjmlp »

harpratap wrote: post #120
pjmlp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there isn't any jurisdiction where Apple has a proper monopoly.

In Japan you can be investigated by Antitrust and there's no proper definition of monopoly there. The only criteria is "superior bargaining position" which anyone can agree Apple does have today - https://globalcompetitionreview.com/jurisdiction/1006143/jap... > For Party A to have superior bargaining position over the other party (Party B), Party A does not need to have a market-dominant position nor an absolutely d…

First of all it would only apply within Japan law, it would need to take into account how Apple market practices relate to other players on the Japanese market and only the opinion of a judge actually matters.

Secondly, it doesn't scale, because Android and Windows own the worldwide market share of consumer platforms.

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

#128

Post by 8ytecoder »

wheels wrote: post #56
claviska wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a loyal Dropbox customer early on. At some point, they stopped caring about individuals and put all of their effort (especially marketing) into businesses. As a paid user, it was annoying to see upgrade nags in the app and on the website. I just wanted a damn folder that would sync properly. That’s still all I really want, but being force fed features I didn’t need pushed me away. After their horrible rebrandin…

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…

iCloud’s $3 for 200GB hit the sweet spot for me.

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

#129

Post by sqldba »

I dropped Dropbox when they enforced the 3 device limit on the free consumer plan a few years ago.

It sucks for them because I was very outspoken about them beforehand because I used it. Then it changed from endorse to absolutely tell people to stay away because it’s unusable.

Penny wise pound foolish.

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

#130

Post by doublesCs »

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…

If dropbox actually did any of these things, people would be complaining about walled gardens.
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