Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#341

Post by machello13 » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:11 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #323

matheusmoreira wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, piracy is almost always the better service. How the hell can a bunch of enthusiasts come up with a better service than multi-billion dollar companies? They seriously need to stop and rethink their industry. When I use my Netflix I get a horribly compressed "high definition" picture, annoying autoplaying ads for shows I don't care about and a constantly decreasing amount of content. Piracy offers the opposite of…

First, I dispute that piracy is really better. Amazon and netflix generally work easier than piracy. My, um friend, has radarr + usenet + plex, and its work pretty well 80%. But subtitles are often a problem. Unpacking/par checking sometimes takes forever. Sometimes the decoder in plex doesn't really work. Sometimes the movie has been DMCA'd off the use net servers. Private trackers involve sucking up to to 15 year o…

Agreed. I use and love Plex (subtitles are less of an issue since they added the ability to automatically find subtitles for shows/movies), but people who say the experience is better are forgetting the amount of time and effort you need to find a reliable torrent site, manage the torrents, and set up the plex server.

It's not a huge amount of work by any means, but for many people it's probably insurmountable. Let alone when you compare it to the work involved to use a streaming service:

1. Sign up 2. Enter CC info 3. Done

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#342

Post by permo-w » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

jonpurdy wrote: post #200

jjbinx007 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads on Amazon Prime are infuriating. And I can't help think how annoying it must be for people with disabilities. My other bugbear are the auto playing videos on Netflix and the use of massive spoilers in episode thumbnails. As a single consumer in a vast ocean I don't think my opinions will ever be listened to. Right now it's worth putting up with this crap as the benefits outweigh the cost but if it gets any worse…

This is a great example of why I still prefer torrenting films and TV shows as opposed to using my wife’s Netflix sub: the pirated media is better! Netflix and Hulu and competing with easier to use and more flexible pirated media, whether they like it or not. The consistency and flexibility of the VLC interface (or whatever media player you choose) is vastly better than whatever features a Netflix PM is trying to pus…

If VLC had a slightly prettier interface, a better logo, and more intuitive queueing/playlists, it would be perfect

Okay, I’m sure the logo has meaning to the devs, so they don’t mind it looking like an error message. That’s fair. They aren’t Instagram, they’re not going for the lowest common denominator. And, okay, the UI works, so why fuck with it?

But why doesn’t it play the next video in a directory when you’ve finished the first? Why is the playlist option so hard to find and oddly implemented? Why can’t they update the UI to look like it was at least made for win7?

This sounds like a major gripe, but really it’s not. Everything else is amazing in that app, it’s one of the best, most complete user experiences around, especially for a free app, but it just seems like it has some really obvious problems with fairly minor fixes

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#343

Post by manigandham » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #335

manigandham wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link to answer: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-than-other... I remember reading this when it was first written. Ironically, Quora was also much simpler and better back then before turning into a spammy bloated mess.

The reason I did a screenshot was because I couldn't reliably link to this answer on Quora. What a dumpster fire that site's become too.

Click on the timestamp for a direct link to the answer. Most social sites follow this UX pattern.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#344

Post by laumars » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

YuccaGloriosa wrote: post #131

laumars wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I’ve ever received an ad on Prime Video. Is it an American thing? Do they happen in the U.K. too? It might be the case that my DNS server (basically PiHole but something I built before PiHole was a thing) is blocking them. However it doesn’t stop inlined ads from YouTube, 4oD, Twitch and other streaming / on demand services.

I'm in UK, using Fire stick in telly, shows skippable ads.

I don’t get ads. Not on a fire stick, via a web browser nor on the LG TV app. Not even a skippable ad. Nothing.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#345

Post by aidos » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

tyrust wrote: post #262

js2 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single video app I have on my AppleTV: Netflix, Amazon, Criterion, even Apple’s own TV app, shrinks whatever you are watching down to a thumbnail just before the movie or show ends. I fucking hate it. Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who sits through to the end when the copyright rolls past and gets pissed off when the lights come on at a theater during the credits. It is incredibly disrespectful to the film. This…

Of the services you listed, I only have Netflix. I hated that too, fortunately you can disable it [0]. Perhaps your other services have a similar setting. [0] - https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102

Neither of those settings help on web. You can stop the previews when you’re browsing around. And you can stop the auto play of the next episode. I have both of those turned off. The annoying one I get hit with (on web) is that when you get to the end of a whole series (or movie, I guess) they roll more or less straight into another trailer.

Bojack Horseman; I laughed, I cried, I lived...I jumped up out of my seat after six seasons to turn off some offensive trailer when it was finally over.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#346

Post by leokennis » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #18

I left dropbox when they changed the full page upsell to "dropbox business" so that I couldn't easily figure out how to skip it and get on with my work. I had a paid pro account at the time. I actually had a conversation with a product manager; I checked the yes you can contact me when I cancelled my account. They simply refused to admit that an upsell was a advertisement and that disrupting my workflow on my paid, p…

I have to say, for all the valid hate it usually gets, iCloud is actually becoming a pretty nice “usb drive in the cloud” compared to the bullshit that is getting tacked on to Dropbox, Google Drive and to a lesser extent OneDrive.

On the other hand, I still keep a large WebDAV/OwnCloud server close for the moment iCloud turns to shit too.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#347

Post by bredren » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:24 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #239

eitland wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a free Dropbox account but I'm not buying. I had 16GB permanent at some point (and up to 50GB temporarily for various promotions) but at some point they cut my account to 10 for no good reason at acted dumb when I asked them about it. Microsoft gave me 5GB extra for uploading photos and shortly afterwards reduced it, forcing me to delete them, luckily I had them backed up elsewhere. Google Photos have st…

Companies throughout history have used the promotional idea of giving something away for free or drastically reduced rates for a new something in order to attract attention. Even drug dealers are known for "the first one's free" type of setup. Storage units have "first month free", cable companies "sign up now for 3 months at $49/mo for 6 months" kind of stuff. It wasn't until sleazy startups and SaaS types come alon…

Washington Post and NY Times digital subscriptions do the same thing. If you subscribe to either, you can try cancelling and they’ll restore the reasonable price.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#348

Post by baggachipz » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #343

baggachipz wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I did a screenshot was because I couldn't reliably link to this answer on Quora. What a dumpster fire that site's become too.

Click on the timestamp for a direct link to the answer. Most social sites follow this UX pattern.

Even when I did that, it wouldn't reliably scroll to the correct location. Not sure if it's because of my ad blocking or what.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#349

Post by encom » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:32 PM UTC

machello13 wrote: post #341

rhino369 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I dispute that piracy is really better. Amazon and netflix generally work easier than piracy. My, um friend, has radarr + usenet + plex, and its work pretty well 80%. But subtitles are often a problem. Unpacking/par checking sometimes takes forever. Sometimes the decoder in plex doesn't really work. Sometimes the movie has been DMCA'd off the use net servers. Private trackers involve sucking up to to 15 year o…

Agreed. I use and love Plex (subtitles are less of an issue since they added the ability to automatically find subtitles for shows/movies), but people who say the experience is better are forgetting the amount of time and effort you need to find a reliable torrent site, manage the torrents, and set up the plex server. It's not a huge amount of work by any means, but for many people it's probably insurmountable. Let a…

Ease of use depends on your computer literacy, I think. For me it involves pasting the IMDB ID into a fairly popular public torrent site (eg. tt0095560) and feed the magnet link to Transmission running on my storage server. When it's done, it gets picked up by LibreELEC and is ready to watch. Could my mother use this? No. But you don't need a computer science degree to do this either.

When Netflix launched in Denmark, I immedately jumped on it. It used to have endless amounts of great content, and was way more convenient than piracy. Now it's just filled with trash, and I can never find what I want to watch. Piracy has again become more convenient.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login

#350

Post by sethhochberg » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 8:32 PM UTC

donohoe wrote: post #150

* sigh * I would pay a lot of money for a service like the one Dropbox was in in its first few years. That is the service that I need now, not all this shiny crud. I've been a Dropbox user for 12+ years. I imagine it as buying a car 10 years ago because it solved all your mobility needs (shopping, occasional longer trips, dropping kids/family members to their events etc). You wander into the garage 12 years later and…

Depending on your platforms of choice, iCloud Drive has been a great solution for me. I was an early Dropbox user who got out when they started limiting the number of syncing devices for free accounts a while back, and the $0.99 a month I pay to Apple for 50GB of storage in a folder that appears on all my devices works exactly like I want it to - I save stuff there, and then forget about it until I need it, and its magically on whatever device I'm using.

Sync could be a feature, or sync could be a product. But the lesson seems to be that if your product is sync, and you grow big and take lots of outside money to do it, sync won't be your product for very long. You'll need to expand and try to do everything else that could use good sync as a feature.