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Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

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Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#141

Post by mikebracco »

robomartin wrote: post #21

OK, so now when they suspend your Google account you also get to experience loosing whatever you had in Google Drive. Just for this I am converting my Dropbox account into one of their paid packages to do my part in ensuring they stick around. One would hope that at one point Google might start to realize that the way they are handling accounts could work against their own interests. I --and I am sure others-- have e…

The danger of getting my account shut down is the sole reason I pay $50/year for a Premium Apps account. The ability to call and talk to someone should something go wrong is worth it considering my entire life is in the account.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#142

Post by krzyk »

rkudeshi wrote: post #2

This doesn't seem to have any new details on the service other than that its 5GB and launching on Mac/Windows/iOS/Android, which is all in line with expectations. Given all the recent leaks, it really doesn't seem like Google's doing much more than cloning Dropbox. Was I the only one expecting Google to knock this one out of the park, a la Gmail's introduction?

It doesn't have a Linux client? What are they thinking?

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#143

Post by danebaker »

zerostar07 wrote: post #102
lawdawg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which free service (or service that pays you money, ala AdSense) has a better approach to customer service? Honestly curious because I hear a lot of complaints about Google, but I have a feeling that Facebook, Bing/Microsoft, etc aren't any better.

All the big guys suck. But, Google will assign a real person to talk to if you have more than ~30M views / month or something. Paypal requires lots of paperwork here in the EU, sometimes their staff will make mistakes or ask you to provide information twice. Facebook is horrible. In one case, when asked about something simple as their billing address, they gave the wrong answer (causing reporting problems). Their dev…

>Google will assign a real person to talk to if you have more than ~30M views / month or something.

...or if you pay for their paid services (Google Apps).

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#144

Post by danebaker »

obilgic wrote: post #98
jacquesm wrote: post #9

We've seen this before. It was called google video. Google ended up buying youtube because even they could no longer deny they'd lost the battle and they couldn't risk it going to a competitor. Dropbox is in for a rough ride, as long as they can maintain focus and quality (beat them at customer support, that should be a walk in the park) they'll be the biggest YC exit ever once Google has run its course with the Goog…

Dropbox can not really have customer loyalty at all. It will take me 2 mins to switch from dropbox to Google drive if they offer more free space...

Absolutely agree! This is good news IMO - Google has far more storage redundancy than Dropbox does, that's for sure. In a pinch, who do you trust to make sure your data isn't kaput? The answer is obvious.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#146

Post by JanLaussmann »

est wrote: post #116

I for one does not think it has any chance competing agaist Dropbox. Every Google client software hasn't been updated for decades. What's the last time you saw an update to that native Google Talk windows client? Google Desktop for Windows? Desktop Search? Google makes desktop clients in a half assed way. It will never be half decent as Dropbox.

Google Chrome is regularly updated.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#148

Post by machrider »

kylec wrote: post #30

I'm hoping this will compel Dropbox to reevaluate their pricing structure. Storage from Google is an order of magnitude cheaper than Dropbox - paid storage starts at $5/year, and for the same $100/year as the cheapest Dropbox account (50GB) you get 8x the capacity.

Dropbox is running on top of S3. If you look at the S3 pricing per GB for storage and bandwidth, it's not exactly cheap. Back of the envelope, I'm guessing a 50GB account costs Dropbox something like $3-$4 per month. Their $9.99 plan can't really go down by an order of magnitude and still be profitable.

Re: Google Drive detailed: 5 GB of free space, launching next week

#149

Post by kinleyd »

tiziano88 wrote: post #88
robomartin wrote: post #21

OK, so now when they suspend your Google account you also get to experience loosing whatever you had in Google Drive. Just for this I am converting my Dropbox account into one of their paid packages to do my part in ensuring they stick around. One would hope that at one point Google might start to realize that the way they are handling accounts could work against their own interests. I --and I am sure others-- have e…

Google has a brilliant customer service, it's just that many people do not understand the meaning of the term "customer". If you use their free services, you are not a customer; if you do pay for it, then you get proper support and everything. It seems pretty fair to me.

Actually, Google makes money off the ads on their 'free' services. I think that qualifies everyone as a customer. The horror stories recounted here is a signal that Google needs to reconsider its reliance on the algorithmic approach.
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