51–60 of 181 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Representative quote: "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. "
His statement is correct, and totally irrelevant when considering consumers.
Honestly, I still think the idea of dropbox is ludicrous. There are many ways to share files, and sending them to a third party to host for you is the worst one of them all. Aside from the few people that really need to multiply their bandwith by many orders of magnitude, a simple file sharing server on their own PC or a server they own would do the job just fine. Besides, dropbox was just yet another iteration of on…
Disclaimer: I work for Dropbox and I trust the people I work with with my files.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it may not be of much comfort to you, but sometimes naysayers are important. Even if they are wrong about the overall trajectory, they may in the process of naysaying point out specific weaknesses that the visionaries might have missed, and, thus, ultimately allow for the success of the product.
Careful! A lot of would be Drew Houston's end up discouraged by naysayers. As a founder, it took me a while to know who to listen to. One of the toughest things about doing a startup is people telling you you're wrong all the time. One of the things YC (and pg in particular) gets right is that they're very encouraging of potential for success.
I'm still not using Dropbox. I absolutely detest the idea that I'm relying on a 3rd party for a feature that I consider should be built into every modern Operating System. At the point when OS vendors relinquished to the Web 2.0 Cult their responsibilities for such features as easy filesharing, the world lost something. Absolutely, its great that people can share files this way. But absolutely, its terrible that it r…
Why should OS vendors also supply cloud storage? Who would provide this cloud storage for Linux distributions?
I'm still not using Dropbox. I absolutely detest the idea that I'm relying on a 3rd party for a feature that I consider should be built into every modern Operating System. At the point when OS vendors relinquished to the Web 2.0 Cult their responsibilities for such features as easy filesharing, the world lost something. Absolutely, its great that people can share files this way. But absolutely, its terrible that it r…
Why should OS vendors also supply cloud storage? Who would provide this cloud storage for Linux distributions?
Apple, Microsoft and Canonical all provides Cloud Storage and "syncing" tools. Be it iCloud, SkyDrive or UbuntuOne.
Honestly, I still think the idea of dropbox is ludicrous. There are many ways to share files, and sending them to a third party to host for you is the worst one of them all. Aside from the few people that really need to multiply their bandwith by many orders of magnitude, a simple file sharing server on their own PC or a server they own would do the job just fine. Besides, dropbox was just yet another iteration of on…
Interesting that someone calls this a good competitor to "GDrive", even though google drive was unveiled several years later. Also interesting is the link to Aaron Swartz's blog, where he describes the need for something similar. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/lazybackup
How does that matter at all when selling to a large consumer base? How many customers of dropbox know what those words mean?
Like so many commercial offerings you could built it from source and get some hacky scripts going on your own but 99% of the world isn't going to do that.
Honestly, I still think the idea of dropbox is ludicrous. There are many ways to share files, and sending them to a third party to host for you is the worst one of them all. Aside from the few people that really need to multiply their bandwith by many orders of magnitude, a simple file sharing server on their own PC or a server they own would do the job just fine. Besides, dropbox was just yet another iteration of on…
I know that I can set up FTP to a remove host and store files. I'm sure I could write Automation scripts that looked for updated files, opened connections and uploaded files when I saved them. Then more to regularly open a connection, poll for updates, and initiate downloads. On all my computers, at least. I'm sure that'd work.
With dropbox, I don't have to invest the time to do that, or to keep it maintained. I don't have to think about it. And I have seamless access to these files on any machine I go to, as well as my mobile phones. It's simple, and as I haven't exceeded my 20GB of free space, it costs me nothing.
Yes someone else has my files. But if I bought a virtual server from a hosting company someone else would still have them, and if I used a single machine at my home, it's susceptible to the whims of my Internet provider, a modem/router failure, and the added complexity of getting and maintaining a static IP address to allow the connections (as well as spending more time to harden and protect that machine as it's exposed to the Internet).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and totally irrelevant when considering consumers. That's the most important part, and the mostly often ignored in HN discussions It's the same with the difference between the Apple I and Appple II
I think the technology and its usability wasn't the problem. The problem was, nobody thought people would be so crazy and store their stuff on the other side of the planet (performance) on the servers of complete strangers (security). But they totally would...