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

Computers as I used to love them

tonsky.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 265 posts

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#111

Post by senko »

josefrichter wrote: post #109
ubermonkey wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago. That's why I started using it. Dropbox does now allow a more cloud-native file system / cloud backup usage pattern, but its roots are absolutely "keep my files in sync across several computers."

That was 10 years ago. Yes, I also started using it because of that. These days the the more important feature (at least for me) is being able to offload rarely used files from my drive. SSDs in MacBooks are still crazy expensive.

> That was 10 years ago.

That's exactly what the article author is saying.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#112

Post by dmix »

> Syncthing has reminded me how great computers can be if they are not made by corporations.

This is a silly conclusion.

The actual problem he has zeroed in on js when marketers are the primary influencers in product design. Every company I’ve worked for while leading UX and who had a marketing/MBA are product manager had made me do useless things like add the “share this on Facebook and Twitter” links that no one has ever click on.

I’ve also worked at companies that are run and put engineers first and the experience was products the total opposite of what the OP experienced.

Believe it or not corporations can be run by tech people. They are just organizations. They are what you you make of them. The only difference is OSS products tend to be run and designed by tech guys, not marketing people.

The other major problem is marketers in tech companies mostly suck at their jobs. I’m not being elitist, who knows software better that the nerds who obsessively spent their youth learning how they work.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#113

Post by cestith »

qayxc wrote: post #33

All good and well, but isn't comparing Syncthing and Dropbox kind of apples to oranges? Dropbox has a completely different scope that goes beyond what Syncthing is offering. If you don't require the features Dropbox offers, it's the wrong tool in the first place.

Is it apples and oranges or is it a nice pair of paper scissors compared to a multitool with the little fold-out scissors? Often we carry the multitool because it mostly meets lots of different needs. Sometimes we just want a single focused tool that does its one job really well.

There are lots of ways to sync or backup files and folders, each with their own quirks, advantages, and disadvantages. There's git, mercurial, OneDrive, Sharepoint, Dropbox, Google Drive/Google One, rsync, scp, NFS, Owncloud, Nextcloud, Crashplan, unison, snapback, Amanda, bacula, IDrive, Carbonite, Barracuda Backup, Veam, duplicity, DAR, bup, Acronis TrueImage, Veritas Backup Exec, HP Data Protector, Borg backup, Commodo Backup, and Windows/SAMBA shares over CIFS to name a minority of options. If every attempt met every need, there'd be far fewer tools for this.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#114

Post by arepublicadoceu »

salamandersauce wrote: post #89
jwr wrote: post #9

I've been using Syncthing for about a year now, with multiple computers, and it's fantastic. Dropbox has become a real pain over the years (I've also been a paid Dropbox customer for a long time): * adding bloat and features that I don't want or need * constantly nagging me for upgrades * lying that the admin password is required (it isn't) * consuming large amounts of CPU when anything changes anywhere in the filesy…

I loved Dropbox. If they had a reasonably priced plan with like 50GB I would have subscribed in a heartbeat but they claimed it was impossible to do so all they offer now is like 2TB for $20 CAD a month which is far more than I need or want to pay. Then they neutered the free plan to 3 devices and I've mostly stopped using it.

The truth is: you’re not the customer that Dropbox wants.

Not offering reasonable storage for a reasonable price is a way to keep users that they don’t want away from their service.

Just like 1Password. They are extremely non subtle in pushing users that want local vault away from their customer base.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#116

Post by 6510 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #110
ubermonkey wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago. That's why I started using it. Dropbox does now allow a more cloud-native file system / cloud backup usage pattern, but its roots are absolutely "keep my files in sync across several computers."

>>Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce > Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago. It's what was advertised. I find it interesting that its initial reception on HN is so frequently slammed for saying "we could already do this, if we wanted to", and then... 10+ years later, Dropbox has had to switch to doing so…

Computers as I used to love them

A work of poetry.

> A major initial motivation for both the ARPANET and the Internet was resource sharing.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#118

Post by thom »

magicalhippo wrote: post #91
Strilanc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I've noticed how dropbox has gone from being a tool that fits well into a larger context, to instead trying to encompass the entire experience of touching synced files. For example, the number of clicks (and the precision of those clicks and the distractions around them) to open the dropbox folder in your OS's file explorer has gradually increased. And the amount of attention dropbox asks for, things like…

I'm about to drop Dropbox as well, due to how PITA it is to use. Have a picture in your Dropbox you want to send as a message on Android? Well, just click Share button of course! Wait, no, that just shares a link not the image itself... No, you gotta do "Open with...", find suitable image app (gallery or picture viewer), wait for it to download and open the image, and share from that app... Though I imagine Dropbox w…

On iOS you just tap the Dropbox icon and browse to the picture you want to send in the messages app. Surprised it's harder on a more open platform.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#119

Post by samhw »

exfil wrote: post #82

I really would like to see Syncthing which is not built using Go. Plain C implementation would be more usable in various environments.

Can you not build it using gccgo? That will support all the targets that C - or at least C-by-GCC - supports.

(I'm not saying this as a Go fanboy; having used it professionally for 3 years, I don't think I'll ever touch it again. But I don't think it's fair to say that the architecture support is bad.)

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#120

Post by foodstances »

square_usual wrote: post #49

I love syncthing as much as the next guy on here, but this article feels very much like "why doesn't this square peg fit my round hole?!" Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce. I couldn't go to a less tech savvy friend and say, "Oh, you use Dropbox for backups? Here, use syncthing instead!" For one, most people don't have multiple computers they want to keep in sy…

Startup idea: provide cloud backup service through Syncthing. End users install Syncthing and then add a remote host provided by your company that is bound to their account. That instance just keeps a copy of everything it receives on some cloud infrastructure. Slap a web interface and some modest data retention on it to recover files.
Post reply on HN