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Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

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Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#81

Post by kenjackson »

Here is the fundamental problem of competing against Google as a SW company. Google is an advertising company, as everyone now well knows. They have no problem selling SW cheap, or giving it away for free, if they can help their advertising business (either directly by hosting ads in the service, or mining data from the service for info to help target ads).

If you feel like your SW has actual value and charge for it, but Google has you in their cross hairs, you either really need a great product (that can't easily be cloned) or very strong network effects.

While I think DropBox is a great product, and harder to clone that most people give it credit for, Google I think is the type of company that could actually nail a DropBox clone. And with GMail, Docs, and Android integration -- could be a serious force.

I must admit I'm a bit saddened that the actual value of so much good SW is ~$0.

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#82

Post by esutton »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #51
esutton wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if its a desktop program like dropbox with a synced folder, you can write a script to place the gzip in the synced folder, and then it will sync automatically

That could work, hopefully it's a 1 way sync though. I don't want all of the contents of my cloud storage to be pulled down to my server.

you can use selective sync

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#83

Post by jpdoctor »

markokocic wrote: post #75
jpdoctor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were Dropbox I'd simply view this as market validation And if I were Dropbox, I'd worry like hell. Google isn't depending on making GDrive profitable from fees, so they can literally give it away.

That's how Microsoft won the browser wars few years ago.

You lost me. MS put out a product for free that was competing with other products for free. Are you really saying that is the situation here?

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#84

Post by pchristensen »

jpdoctor wrote: post #70
mattmaroon wrote: post #54

When I was in YC (same batch as Dropbox) this was a constant question. "What happens to Dropbox if Gdrive launches?" I don't actually remember what Drew and Arash thought, but a lot of people speculated on it. It was probably a real threat to them 4.5 years ago. I can't imagine it is now. Dropbox has a large, happy fanbase that's going to keep using it and keep spreading. They're going to keep growing. They've got a…

> If I were Dropbox I'd simply view this as market validation And if I were Dropbox, I'd worry like hell. Google isn't depending on making GDrive profitable from fees, so they can literally give it away.

Google has given away lots of stuff without success. Worrying about a big competitor "crushing" you just because they announce a product is a sign of productitis. Symptoms include ignoring marketing, customer experience, and organizational focus.

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#85

Post by pchristensen »

petenixey wrote: post #16

Dropbox is a brilliant piece of software however it's hard to justify more than $10/month for backup as a consumer. Since 50Gb only now covers my photos and docs, doesn't cover my music and even my photo collection's needs trimming to fit I would move to GDrive very quickly rather than double that spend to get to the next tier. I've long hoped that Dropbox would segment their pricing plans more. It's unsettling havin…

For most people the barrier isn't cost, it's grasping the value of having backups in the first place. If using GDrive is even .000000000000001% harder than "save files in a folder", Dropbox has nothing to worry about.

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#86

Post by webignition »

patio11 wrote: post #76
jpdoctor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were Dropbox I'd simply view this as market validation And if I were Dropbox, I'd worry like hell. Google isn't depending on making GDrive profitable from fees, so they can literally give it away.

You'd be surprised how difficult "giving it away" can be, even for Google. Google succeeded big on giving away email, search, and androids. Do I need to list up all the acquisitions and products that even with a mortal lock on navigation on the Internet Google couldn't convince people was worth at least $0?

That would actually be a very interesting list. Hard to complete exhaustively, but a few relevant examples would be great!

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#88

Post by jpdoctor »

patio11 wrote: post #76
jpdoctor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were Dropbox I'd simply view this as market validation And if I were Dropbox, I'd worry like hell. Google isn't depending on making GDrive profitable from fees, so they can literally give it away.

You'd be surprised how difficult "giving it away" can be, even for Google. Google succeeded big on giving away email, search, and androids. Do I need to list up all the acquisitions and products that even with a mortal lock on navigation on the Internet Google couldn't convince people was worth at least $0?

Dropbox can take the approach of not worrying if they want. Standing on years of head start perhaps.

However: File sync strikes me as a lot closer to email than .

Additionally, it seems logical to build/ship GDrive right into android.

I say again: I'd worry like hell.

Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?

#90

Post by nickgonzo »

I'd love to see Dropbox open up their platform for developers to build applications on top of it. Seems like that could entail all sorts of things, such as solving the friction between using web apps with large files, or groups of files. Imagine dropping files in a folder and then being able to manipulate them on the web, and save them back to your folder seamlessly.
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