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

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#351

Post by aeturnum » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

thinkharderdev wrote: post #313

aeturnum wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of smaller tech businesses that could make a good living for a few hundred folks, but are extremely vulnerable to FAANG companies putting out a half-baked competitor. Strategically, from the FAANG perspective, it makes sense to spend a little money (for them) dipping a toe into every pond "just in case." On the flip side, it makes bootstrapping a sustainable business extremely difficult. If Google give…

The problem is that maybe Steve Jobs was right after all and Dropbox is a feature not a product. Dropbox file syncing is best in class but for the vast majority of users that is probably not the most important thing for them. Most people won't run into the hard edge cases that Dropbox has solved better than the others. And something like Google Drive derives it's value from he fact that is deeply integrated into GSui…

I think it's absolutely correct that, for Google, it doesn't make sense to charge for sync. I also think that anyone who's ever relied on sync knows that there is a lot of value in doing it well - especially in a B2B context. It's true that "just" filesystem sync isn't a full product. The product would probably be sync-as-a-service where you can manage distribution and deduplication of resources across your systems.

So we have a situation where it doesn't make sense for Google to focus on the feature, but the fact that they have the feature at all trips up specialist companies.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#352

Post by hiimtroymclure » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

dalrympm wrote: post #101

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #22

Knew the writing was on the wall for this company the moment I had to dig into a drop down chevron to find the download button for a file shared with me on Dropbox. Making it frustrating to collaborate with paying customers of your platform is a sure sign something is rotten.

I have been a Dropbox customer for several years and every single time I try to download a file from the web I get stumped. It's really a user hostile interface and it's up there on my list of things to replace but not high enough that I've done anything about it.

just downloaded it the other day to search for old files from long ago and was barraged by popups, installers, and trying to get me to do 5 things at once. So confusing. I gave up searching for what I was looking for

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#353

Post by hyperpallium2 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:43 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?

I'm guessing because they solve interop problem between systems, which is going away.

Great idea and execution, very valuable but seemed valued even higer than that to me (i.e overvalued). They were well-placed for app hosting - but lots of competition and it's hard to hit the jackpot twice (even google hasn't managed it, nor apple, arguably).

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#354

Post by paxys » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #261

Was the COO a bad fit? She was only in the role for ~1 year.

Every company needs a scapegoat when things are going downhill, and a relatively new exec is the perfect one when the established leadership doesn't want to take responsibility.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#355

Post by layer8 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #219

gruez wrote: post #181

off topic: I'm the type of person who likes to select text while reading, and this page is terrible for that. It seems to replace the select cursor icon with a highlighter icon, which is super jarring. It also adds a weird popup after you selected text.

On the topic of the page itself: the percent scroll bar on the top of the page is quite nice and I wish more articles did this.

That’s what the regular scroll bar should be for, instead of auto-hiding.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#356

Post by thebiglebrewski » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

Can anyone recommend a product similar in nature to the initial beginnings of Dropbox - a client that syncs a folder to the cloud and allows you to access/easily share those files? Not just rsync or a command line thing.

I tried the Google Drive client for this (for Mac) and it was just a huge memory/resource hog, way worse than the initial DropBox client. But if someone just had "Dropbox as it was in like, 2010", that would be killer.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#357

Post by jedberg » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

aeturnum wrote: post #309

avrionov wrote: post #299

Dropbox and Evernote, for me are two very similar companies. Startups that innovated on a great user experience and had a flawless execution in the beginning. I was an early adopter of both of them, and they worked well. Dropbox sync between different machines worked like magic. I still remember some of the nightmares my coworkers had with OneDrive in meetings when the files for the presentations were missing because…

There are lots of smaller tech businesses that could make a good living for a few hundred folks, but are extremely vulnerable to FAANG companies putting out a half-baked competitor. Strategically, from the FAANG perspective, it makes sense to spend a little money (for them) dipping a toe into every pond "just in case." On the flip side, it makes bootstrapping a sustainable business extremely difficult. If Google give…

> Perhaps a new anti-monopoly law that prevents orgs from entering into competition without any potential for profit?

That's an interesting idea, but if you think about it, a lot of companies are in the same boat. How long did Uber go before making a profit? Amazon?

Heck, Microsoft spent eight billion dollars until Xbox started turning a profit for them. Xbox probably would have never existed if not for Microsoft taking a massive loss to make it happen.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#358

Post by layer8 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #216

I just paid money for managed NextCloud hosting last night and was starting my transition today. If all goes well, then $27/year is going to be a lot better than a kneecapped free tier or a $120/year paid plan.

How much storage do you get for $27/year, and where? (just curious)

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#359

Post by bachmeier » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

avrionov wrote: post #299

Dropbox and Evernote, for me are two very similar companies. Startups that innovated on a great user experience and had a flawless execution in the beginning. I was an early adopter of both of them, and they worked well. Dropbox sync between different machines worked like magic. I still remember some of the nightmares my coworkers had with OneDrive in meetings when the files for the presentations were missing because…

> Dropbox and Evernote, for me are two very similar companies.

I was also going to comment on their similarities. It's not mentioned as often, but Evernote's biggest selling point in the beginning was that they figured out how to make multidevice sync work. The product was good, but not unique. In the early days there were no competitors that could offer the comfort of Evernote's sync.

Unfortunately both companies still have a 2010 mindset, at least when it comes to setting price. Neither seems to understand that their pricing is insane in 2021. $120/year is just too much for Dropbox (and nobody's going to fall for the 2 TB thing). Neither has a competitive free offering, so they're dropping off the radar for anyone looking for a free plan. Anyone working at either company that's not looking for a job should be.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#360

Post by steve_adams_86 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

thinkharderdev wrote: post #313

aeturnum wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of smaller tech businesses that could make a good living for a few hundred folks, but are extremely vulnerable to FAANG companies putting out a half-baked competitor. Strategically, from the FAANG perspective, it makes sense to spend a little money (for them) dipping a toe into every pond "just in case." On the flip side, it makes bootstrapping a sustainable business extremely difficult. If Google give…

The problem is that maybe Steve Jobs was right after all and Dropbox is a feature not a product. Dropbox file syncing is best in class but for the vast majority of users that is probably not the most important thing for them. Most people won't run into the hard edge cases that Dropbox has solved better than the others. And something like Google Drive derives it's value from he fact that is deeply integrated into GSui…

Isn't this just it? There's no doubt that there's value and that the software is excellent in both cases. I'm just not sure we should try to turn every software project into a moonshot and expect anything sustainable as a result. It's not sustainable in most industries.