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Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

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31–40 of 72 posts

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#31
post #18

Twitter's and Dropbox's business models couldn't be more different. Heck, everything about their businesses is dissimilar. This comparison is idiotic.

With all of twitter and dropbox and youtube I think about how with ubiquitous IPv6 they might get replaced with P2P protocols. A fancy OceanStore client could eventually do everything dropbox does.

All these operations seem so vulnerable to innovation that is quite likely in the next eight years. I'm skeptical about the super high valuations.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#32
It's incredible how cynical everyone is in this thread about the valuation of a company that actually MAKES MONEY and how optimistic people were about the Snapchat valuation in the thread from last week, a company that hasn't made a dime.

It seems the only way to really get a massive valuation as a "company" is to make sure you don't start making any actual money, otherwise people will stop harping about "growth is the only thing that matters, this valuation is accurate" and switch to "profit is the only thing that matters, this valuation is ridiculous."

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#33
post #30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their traffic is not even close to Netflix and yet, Netflix runs on AWS.

Netflix also has a very different use case. Building a data center that can meet the storage needs of Dropbox seems much simpler than building one that can meet the compute/bandwidth needs of Netflix.

hah

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#34

Anybody have any idea what the distribution is here for consumer vs business? I've literally never heard of anyone, company or individual, paying for Dropbox.

You're right to doubt your personal evidence at this point. Almost everyone I know who has a Dropbox account pays for it.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#35
post #24
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still? I would have thought that by this stage they'd have started building their own (at least mini-) data centers.

Their traffic is not even close to Netflix and yet, Netflix runs on AWS.

For computing. For delivery they use various CDN's. delivery is the expensive part, for them

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#36
post #32

It's incredible how cynical everyone is in this thread about the valuation of a company that actually MAKES MONEY and how optimistic people were about the Snapchat valuation in the thread from last week, a company that hasn't made a dime. It seems the only way to really get a massive valuation as a "company" is to make sure you don't start making any actual money, otherwise people will stop harping about "growth is t…

Well, when you have no profit to speak of there's nothing to anchor the discussion. The hopeful talk about "growth" with the hazy implication that the company has a "profit" switch they will eventually flip into the "on" position. The cynical see a storm of speculation with no concrete anchor and walk out on what they see as a waste of time.

Which, I guess, is a long way of saying "I agree with you". I think my theory does at least fit the patterns of conversation, though.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#37

Anybody have any idea what the distribution is here for consumer vs business? I've literally never heard of anyone, company or individual, paying for Dropbox.

>I've literally never heard of anyone, company or individual, paying for Dropbox

Hi. Nice to meet you.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#39
post #32

It's incredible how cynical everyone is in this thread about the valuation of a company that actually MAKES MONEY and how optimistic people were about the Snapchat valuation in the thread from last week, a company that hasn't made a dime. It seems the only way to really get a massive valuation as a "company" is to make sure you don't start making any actual money, otherwise people will stop harping about "growth is t…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#40
post #18

Twitter's and Dropbox's business models couldn't be more different. Heck, everything about their businesses is dissimilar. This comparison is idiotic.

With all of twitter and dropbox and youtube I think about how with ubiquitous IPv6 they might get replaced with P2P protocols. A fancy OceanStore client could eventually do everything dropbox does. All these operations seem so vulnerable to innovation that is quite likely in the next eight years. I'm skeptical about the super high valuations.

IPv4 and UPnP allows most of the P2P scenarios IPv6 does. Please clue me in as to how a P2P system is going to maintain always-on backups/storage of my personal photos.
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