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Save more with Google Drive

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Re: Save more with Google Drive

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

simonsarris wrote: post #9

I think at this point I'm a little more comfortable paying more for a company that I know won't abandon this market. I know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years. How can we be sure Google Drive won't be shuttered in less time? Google is very haphazard with their web properties. Sometimes they shutter them, sometimes they stuff them in the closet. Google Reader, Wave, etc, you know. the stories. What scares me more are…

> I know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years. How can we be sure Google Drive won't be shuttered in less time?

And how do you know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years? They can't:

a) Go out of business, or b) Be acquired and have the service shutdown, or c) Have some new application of the core technology become more profitable, pivot to that as their prime focus, and discontinue the existing service retaining the infrastructure for that new application.

> Google Groups used to be huge, now to get to them you must click Apps -> More -> Even more from Google -> Scroll to the bottom of the page.

Or just type "Groups" in the Google search bar, and its the first result.

> What guarantee do we have here?

The same as you have with Dropbox.

> I'm sorry if I come off as scaremongering.

Then stop scaremongering.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#92

Post by nostrademons »

e40 wrote: post #52
simonsarris wrote: post #9

I think at this point I'm a little more comfortable paying more for a company that I know won't abandon this market. I know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years. How can we be sure Google Drive won't be shuttered in less time? Google is very haphazard with their web properties. Sometimes they shutter them, sometimes they stuff them in the closet. Google Reader, Wave, etc, you know. the stories. What scares me more are…

I agree with the general sentiment, but in this case, I think it's pretty clear it's central to Google's strategy. Now, Nexus phones? Those might not exist in a few short years.

Nexus is necessary as long as Apple sticks around as a viable competitor (which seems like the foreseeable future). Without the Nexus line there's no counterweight to prevent the public from associating "Android" with "crapware", because every OEM has an incentive to take distribution deals from crapware providers, and nobody except Google has an incentive to preserve the reputation of Android as a slick, easy to use OS. The Nexus line is so that high-end influencers can show their friends how awesome their phone is, so that mainstream customers think "I want an Android phone" and not "I want an iPhone" and then can go buy from a wide variety of vendors if the Nexus itself doesn't fit their price range.

It was pretty much the same story with Windows - as long as Apple was a viable competitor PC clones were pretty decent, but once Apple started going down the tubes you started getting bargain-basement Windows machines loaded up with crapware. The Apple/Google rivalry has been really good for consumers, as Apple forces Google to get better at user experience while Google forces Apple to be more open and support standards.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#93

Post by scott_karana »

fletchowns wrote: post #48
icebraining wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? If they close it, you signup for a competitor and re-upload the data. Even if they do close it, you'll have months to copy everything. And besides, if you're relying on a single system for all your backups, you're doing it wrong.

That's a terrible retort. Downloading and then uploading a terabyte of data can be very expensive depending on where you live, and it can also take a very long time.

If Google Drive is getting shuttered, no doubt their competitors will immediately implement "Google Drive importers" using the API, if they don't have them already.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#94

Post by smtddr »

chris_mahan wrote: post #51
staunch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And backups/replication/off-site storage, security, maintenance, etc.

So why don't they say that? Instead it's: 9.99 per month for 1TB.

It's implied.

We all know(or should know) that GDrive is provided to us with a huge & complex infrastructure. Your TB drives at home do not begin to compare.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#95

Post by drdaeman »

mikevm wrote: post #66
supercanuck wrote: post #5

what features am I losing by switching from Dropbox?

your privacy.

If he meant he's switching from other Google plan then there're probably no changes except for quota.

If he meant he's switching from Dropbox it's not like Google's any worse or better in this regard. Both store files unencrypted (or encrypted with a key known to storage provider, although I somehow doubt it), both are probably not immune against a TLA-grade adversary.

If he meant he's switching from, say, Tarsnap or Cyphertite then you're right.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#96

Post by dragonwriter »

MadManE wrote: post #37
jtchang wrote: post #28

It nags me that even at this great price I'm not jumping up and down to switch from Dropbox. Why is this? -- Once you start using Dropbox there are some serious network effects. It takes a lot of work to get all your friends (both work and personal) to move. -- Even though Google Drive is so much cheaper it just doesn't seem to have the usability of Dropbox. I find the web interface really hard to use for some reason…

What's the difference between paying you to switch, and just being vastly cheaper?

> What's the difference between paying you to switch, and just being vastly cheaper?

Time value of money.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#97

Post by zacwest »

dperfect wrote: post #67

I won't go near Google Drive until they fix some serious longstanding issues with the desktop client. The two that caused me to abandon Google Drive (I even have a free TB for 3 years from my Chromebook Pixel): 1. No way to re-sync existing folders on your computer (seriously). I was pushing hundreds of GBs of photos to my Google Drive, and after syncing everything, upgraded to a new computer (the files were stored o…

The big client issue for me is the bandwidth usage.

Google Drive has no intelligent throttling, so it consumes your entire upload pipe, which makes other apps unusable. This is not really what I want a background service to do.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#99

Post by yukichan »

untog wrote: post #27
simonsarris wrote: post #9

I think at this point I'm a little more comfortable paying more for a company that I know won't abandon this market. I know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years. How can we be sure Google Drive won't be shuttered in less time? Google is very haphazard with their web properties. Sometimes they shutter them, sometimes they stuff them in the closet. Google Reader, Wave, etc, you know. the stories. What scares me more are…

I know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years. As a counterpoint to that, Dropbox might not exist in 5 years. Google most likely will. Basically, there is no answer here that guarantees the future of your cloud storage. It's useful to access your files from multiple locations, but using it for long term file archival seems like asking for disappointment (as well as being a neat way of throwing money into the sky).

Dropbox is profitable yeah? Why wouldn't they be around in 5 years? Google's prices are so much cheaper than Dropbox, but the ease of use with Dropbox, and the fact that I have my families devices and computers already set up probably means I wont ever switch.

I take a picture with my phone? It's on dropbox. My wife takes a picture? It's on dropbox. I take a screenshot on my PC? It's on dropbox.

I even wrote a little silly bookmark tool to use the dropbox API.

Dropbox is amazing. It's more than just about the price.

Re: Save more with Google Drive

#100

Post by chillingeffect »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #84
simonsarris wrote: post #9

I think at this point I'm a little more comfortable paying more for a company that I know won't abandon this market. I know Dropbox will be Dropbox in 5 years. How can we be sure Google Drive won't be shuttered in less time? Google is very haphazard with their web properties. Sometimes they shutter them, sometimes they stuff them in the closet. Google Reader, Wave, etc, you know. the stories. What scares me more are…

Let's assess risk. Risk A) Google might end support for Drive. They've shown that , if they do, they'll give a lot of notice. You'll have an opportunity to move your files elsewhere. Risk B) Dropbox goes out of business. Most likely because Google is undercutting their prices by about 90%. If you are lucky, they give some notice. They also might just send everyone home and shut off the lights, like many companies do…

they didn't tell anybody when they pulled support for sets from spreadsheets.
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