Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#171

Post by toyg » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #118

djhworld wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the main reason I'm not a Dropbox customer is their rigid pricing structure, £7.99 a month for 1TB is good value for people who use 1TB, but I only need like 10% of that so would be wasting money I'm guessing they bank on a small % of "whale" consumers using all their allowance and everyone else being way under the limit I've stuck with Google drive for the 100gb plan at £1.99 which suits my needs, but would m…

They're not likely to add smaller packages though, since they KNOW 99% of their customers will never go up that high. It's a bit like gmail; they offered 1 GB at the time (if I recall correctly?) which was a ridiculous amount that in practice, 99% of people would NEVER reach. But it was great PR. Mind you, gmail is "free". If Dropbox were to offer a 500GB package for half price, 99% of their customers that found out…

> they would likely open themselves up to a class action suit for people who feel like they overpaid for years.

That's overly dramatic. Companies cut prices every day.

It is however true that Dropbox cannot compete on price with the likes of MS, Google, and Apple. They can only compete on experience and features, and few people are impressed by their evolution in those areas.

Do we really need a monstruous (and monstruously slow) html view when right-clicking on the systray icon? Do we really need online file-viewers that, most of the times, seem meant to stop you from getting at the actual file?

Dropbox was great when it did one thing flawlessly and got out of your way, while allowing for hackability and true cross-platform support. When they were doing fun things like the easter-egg-hunts and challenges to get extra space. Now they often feel like Yet Another SV App shouting "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I CAN DO THIS AND THAT AND YOU DON'T NEED ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR LIFE! LET ME INGEST ALL YOUR DATA AND LOCK YOU IN FOREVER!". I still have an account mostly because I have a free grandfathered account, but the minute they turn it off (and inevitably they will, since they are now a Serious Company with Serious Strategies and Serious Spreadsheets) I'll just check out.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#172

Post by diebeforei485 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

megamike wrote: post #132

COBRA? COBRA is a sad expensive joke

They're covering 6 months of it, so it's free for 6 months. After those 6 months it does get expensive, yes.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#173

Post by gagglegoose » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

underseacables wrote: post #154

rmk wrote: post #143

Was the COO fired? It sounds like she was, reading this article. Is this a move to further reduce cost by rehiring in less-expensive locations? I imagine engineering functions will also be affected.

Probably asked to resign. If the business is continuing to fail, and the CEO doesn’t take responsibility, someone has to be sacrificed for the board, share holders, etc.

Dropbox is continuing to fail?

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#174

Post by simoneau » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #150

megamike wrote: post #132

COBRA? COBRA is a sad expensive joke

Healthcare needs to be disconnected from the employer. Public option and private and all healthcare benefits need to go to salary. It would make workers able to change jobs easier, businesses able to start and compete with others/countries easier, and would reduce ageism as well as going direct to consumer it would help the fixed pricing market of healthcare/medical services and supplies. We don't get our auto/home/l…

I don't understand why this doesn't get more discussion. It's a much more conservative step than "medicare for all" and would do a lot of good.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#175

Post by latchkey » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #67

Clients share files with me using Dropbox so I need a Dropbox account. My Dropbox account is now close to full and I have to "manage it". I don't like how files shared with me count against my quota and I don't like having to babysit a service my clients use to share files. I wonder how many business owners "just pay" to make the nag messaging go away.

> I don't like how files shared with me count against my quota

I stopped using dropbox many years ago over this one issue.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#176

Post by busterarm » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #4

> Dropbox also announced that chief operating officer Olivia Nottebohm will leave the company February 5. Interesting change of leadership that was buried in the article - she was only there for < 1 year after leaving Google Cloud. Anyone here have insight / thoughts on the move in the Exec Team?

I'm not even sure that pulling someone from Google Cloud was a good idea to begin with.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#177

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #170

thenightcrawler wrote: post #159

Keep on thinking of Steve Jobs saying companies like these are features not products

Do you remember in what context he say that?

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#178

Post by brundolf » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #153

tw04 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, mega-corps aren't the problem. As Steve Jobs famously said: they're a feature, not a product. Even if you eliminate Microsoft, Google, AND Amazon from the discussion, the list of alternatives is endless. Synology and QNAP both have a "free" sync and share client. WD, Seagate, Samsung, Apple, not to mention the open-source options out there. Do the big 3 put MORE pressure on Dropbox, sure. But they never p…

> I disagree, mega-corps aren't the problem. As Steve Jobs famously said: they're a feature, not a product. I almost kneejerk downvoted out of disagreement. Mega-corps are _a_ problem, but not the problem here, which you astutely pointed out. Dropbox didn't/couldn't innovate beyond their core product is clearly the issue here. Additionally, most of what I find that companies use Dropbox for equates to Shadow IT. Some…

The thing is that I (and many people) still want exactly the core product that Dropbox offers (and does better than anyone else), even if that's a smaller market than it was ten years ago. It makes sense that businesses would want to get all of their IT solutions from a single integrated company for simplicity's sake, and it makes sense that consumers don't mess with actual files as much as they used to. But for my own purposes I actually wish Dropbox would stop trying to move beyond their core product. And even though the market of people like me has shrunk, I don't think it will ever go away completely.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#179

Post by webwielder2 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #168

This is interesting because having layoffs at a company that should be going off like a rocket during a pandemic is odd. What is going on at Dropbox that prevented them from taking advantage of the huge shift to remote work?

Why should they be going off like a rocket?

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#180

Post by CedarMills » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #168

This is interesting because having layoffs at a company that should be going off like a rocket during a pandemic is odd. What is going on at Dropbox that prevented them from taking advantage of the huge shift to remote work?

Their UX has become worse, questionable design choices, and 2 GB limit is almost a joke. Chances are, if you're in the market, you just use something like Box which provides a lot more value for free.