What's the difference between paying you to switch, and just being vastly cheaper?
There isn't. Apparently some HNers don't understand how to reason about economics.
It's conversational English. Consider applying the Principle of Charity. He meant "Google would need to pay me to use the service in order for me to switch.". This doesn't even explicitly mean that. It just means "I don't find this offering compelling.".
See, we could have avoided this whole thread by applying the Peter Principle in conversation.
What's the difference between paying you to switch, and just being vastly cheaper?
There isn't. Apparently some HNers don't understand how to reason about economics.
It's conversational English. Consider applying the Principle of Charity. He meant "Google would need to pay me to use the service in order for me to switch.". This doesn't even explicitly mean that. It just means "I don't find this offering compelling.".
See, we could have avoided this whole thread by applying the Peter Principle in conversation.
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…
Dropbox is profitable yeah? Why wouldn't they be around in 5 years? Google's prices are so much cheaper than Dropbox
You just answered your own question. Dropbox is convenient because you've already installed it everywhere. Google Drive is already on your Android phone and in your e-mail inbox.
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.
I actually get annoyed when Dropbox doesn't consume my entire upload pipe.
90% of what I use Dropbox for is stuffing files in my Public folder and getting a URL from them, and that's a synchronous action--I can't do anything until I have the URL. So it should use all the bandwidth it can.
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 really don't buy this argument. Every specific victim of the slash and burn period at Google was fairly understandably, even if I disagreed with it personally. It was also part of a fairly clear realignment that came with a change in leadership. Google Drive is such a major part of Google strategy, that it seems remarkably unlikely to suffer the same fate. And if it does? Google's deprecation and data export polici…
I for one LOVED wave and used it every single day. My friends and I spent many months looking for a viable replacement. fwiw we settled on glassboard if anyone else liked wave and never found a suitable replacement.
it doesn't have threaded commenting which is sad, but the mobile apps are much better.
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).
If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using. Google has a long history of dropping services, because it can. It does not matter to Google that 10k people or 100k people find that particular service useful. Google is not about to drop search and search related ads any time soon - storage services it could drop tomorrow and not car…
If there is a choice - it is better to place your bet with the company whose main business line depends on the service you are using.
I don't see how that's a hard and fast rule. File storage is Dropbox's only business line - if it fails, they're gone. If it helps their other concerns (Gmail, Google Apps) Google can prop up Drive even if its unprofitable.
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…
Oh please; you're just trying to make Google have consequences for what it did to Reader, that's all. Google is about as likely to shut off Google Drive as it is to shut off it's search engine.
Google has shut down many more services than Reader. I am not certain why you choose to highlight only Reader as if that's the one thing Google has ever shut down. Even of the things Google hasn't shut down, many have been "wound down", with no updates or even bug fixes, until eventually being replaced by something only half-related with no upgrade path. The "more wood behind fewer arrows" thing kind of became a meme for a while, so the fact that people (it isn't just you) latch on to one example they've heard of as if the constant shutterings don't happen is highly strange. Even key properties that seem highly embedded in numerous products (Checkout) get this treatment, so it isn't like anything is immune.
I live in the Bay Area and I pay about $800/year for 120KB/s upload (AT&T U-Verse). Certainly no blackjack and hookers included.
Comcast in the bay area charges $77/month for a residential-class connection at 50 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up. Even if you go for a business-class connection, it's $70/month for 16/3. In short, you need to find a better ISP. :)
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…
1. do you really think that dropbox sends everyone home and shuts off the lights? That's a joke and you know it.
2. These files are all on our computers. I suspect that if dropbox blows up and does just go home and shut off the lights, we'll hear about it and notice. We can then take those files and move them to google drive or whatever.