my dropbox account was deleted without warning or notice, so i guess im ready for something new
repro steps: 1) have a dropbox account 2) join a company that uses dropbox teams 3) leave that company 4) poof, account disappears
Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
101–110 of 221 posts
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#102I love Dropbox and Google Drive would have a hard time getting me to switch. Dropbox seems to "get it" when it comes to simple, easy to use file synchronization. The one area that GDrive might wiggle into is making it even easier to use Google Docs. I really like GDocs but I don't use them very much because its just not convenient to do so with local files. However, if I can "upload" a file to a directory on my machi…
One thing that Dropbox doesn't do well is file segregation
Dropbox does do that. In the preferences, each folder has a checkbox for "Sync this folder to this computer"; uncheck it and the folder won't be on that device. It's marginally clunky to set up since you have to do it for each folder on each device - it doesn't have a higher level abstraction like "no large zip archives" - but the functionality is there.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#103When 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…
I'd worry more about Bitcasa, because they are taking the same "ease of use" idea, but making it even easier and cheaper. Google is not the best with marketing, I haven't heard of any friends using Google Deals instead of Groupon yet either.
I sign up for the beta and the first thing they do is try entice me to spam social network sites about their product (that I haven't tried) in exchange for a better place in line. Pass.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#104Dropbox is a dominant product because they understand user experience. Google's in-house products are, increasingly, failures because they don't.
* Of course, there are a lot of smart people at Google. It's not that there aren't Googlers who understand user experience, it's that the Google organism rejects their intuition and refuses to understand it. They methodically optimize UX to a local maximum, and throw up their hands when nobody is impressed, like a Vulcan trying to compose music.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#105I expect GDrive to compete with Backblaze and Crashplan (cheap + inconvenient compared to Dropbox), but its effect on the Dropbox userbase to be minimal.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#106It's in areas like this that Google sometimes oversteps the mark and veers dangerously close to "being evil" territory... in MY opinion. As I see it: Dropbox innovated, and they innovated well. It's inevitable that competition would arise, but competition on the scale Google can offer could well mean total annihilation for Dropbox, if annihilation is what Google pursues. Google doesn't "need" to enter this market. An…
That's "evil" only because they will compete with a smaller company that you personally happen to like.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Not to mention, MS made a (then) superior product. I agree, the analogy doesn't work.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Netscape initially charged for the browser. "Netscape Navigator was not free to the general public until January 1998" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape
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Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. Competition on this market space is almost guaranteed to be a race to the bottom. Dropbox will have to respond by concentrating on features to set itself apart.
They should concentrate on making users really happy. Features may or may not figure in there. It would be pretty tough to compete with an over 10,000 engineer company with incredible building blocks on features.
That headcount is part of the reason it's easier to compete with Google.
The design of the Google organization rewards micro-optimizations (use data for every decision, or else your ass isn't covered) and risk-aversion (set low KPI's and game them to get the biggest bonus each quarter).
By contrast, the design of the innovation space in general rewards peak-jumping, risk-taking, and a healthy blend of intuition and data. And it already selected Dropbox.
Don't get me wrong, the (layers and layers of) leadership at Google want to make killer products. But at the level of the lowly implementer, not only is making killer products only a peripheral concern, but those who can and want to make killer products tend to self-select out of Google.
Re: Google Drive: Is the Dropbox Party Over?
#110When 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…
I'd worry more about Bitcasa, because they are taking the same "ease of use" idea, but making it even easier and cheaper. Google is not the best with marketing, I haven't heard of any friends using Google Deals instead of Groupon yet either.
Really, I'm being downvoted into troll territory? Does it help if I say I'm a paying Dropbox user? The community is definitely changing here over the years...