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Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

fortune.com

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Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#101

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

krzrak wrote: post #96
akg_67 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's their value proposition in 2017? I have been paid user of Dropbox for now 4+ years. The reason I have stuck with it because "It works! plain and simple." I have tried other storage services like Google, iCloud and Box. But none match the simplicity, consistency, invisibility, cross-platform, seamless features of Dropbox. Google is untrustworthy because you never know when they discontinue any service. They h…

> Google is untrustworthy because you never know when they discontinue any service. They have no concept of customer service. They might well be running by robots. With Dropbox is the same. Some time ago a weird bug occured on my Dropbox account and I reported it. Being paying customer (3 accounts) I expected my issue to be handled professionally, as with most of other services that I use. Unfortunately, I was disapp…

> is introducing

Nah, they've always been good at not listening to what they don't want to hear.

People were asking about client-side encryption back in 2009, and they've been mishearing for all these years. Top notch.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#103

Post by icelancer »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #49

If I had anything to do with Dropbox I'd be scrambling to cash out ASAP. It’s a matter of time before Apple rolls out iCloud file/folder sharing (which currently exists in some form already). In addition, they recently announced iMessage "Business Chat" which will likely later include other enterprise functionality.

>It’s a matter of time before Apple rolls out iCloud file/folder sharing

This is still unusable on PC and likely to be just as bad as iTunes was for years if it gets rolled out to Windows.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#104

Post by arethuza »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #54
synaesthesisx wrote: post #49

If I had anything to do with Dropbox I'd be scrambling to cash out ASAP. It’s a matter of time before Apple rolls out iCloud file/folder sharing (which currently exists in some form already). In addition, they recently announced iMessage "Business Chat" which will likely later include other enterprise functionality.

I think your statement is correct but example is not very good. Majority of Dropbox users are using Windows. Perhaps if Azure were to come out with Dropbox-like functionality this would be more apt. (I'm sure that Azure has at least some Dropbox-like functionality but is still a distance away from replacing Dropbox)

Ignoring OneDrive for the moment, Azure File Storage is rather cool as it doesn't work by synchronizing copies of files it is literally a cloud based SMB drive:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/storage/files/

It's not terribly user friendly at the moment - I have wondered if there is a market for a nice easy to use front end for it...

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#105

Post by suprfnk »

sgustard wrote: post #30
prklmn wrote: post #21

A major difference between between this tech boom and the dot com boom of the 90s is the general public had a real shot at investing in serious growth potential during the dot com boom. Now most of the growth is experienced under private ownership, then the grossly overvalued company is pawned off for the public to invest in. VCs have figured out how to extract most of the exciting gains.

"Investing" in those days was "speculating." Hundreds of dubious companies made it to IPO that would never make it that far today, and most of those lost all their public investors' money. https://mattermark.com/technology-company-ipos-then-now/

Replace 'companies' with 'cryptocurrency', and you have your exciting market today!

Hundreds of dubious cryptocurrencies of which a few might make it far.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#106

Post by lordnacho »

jakubp wrote: post #83
vecter wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? People use it as a form of communication. It makes people feel closer to their friends. That has enormous value.

So this is interesting. You may feel closer to people you haven't seen for a while when they are always "with" you on Snapchat -- I have certainly experienced that with people I don't talk to often or people who live on another continent. But then again, I can't shake the feeling that this is more about fun than really being close. I remember having close friends in high school and at the university. We spent many ho…

> But then again, I can't shake the feeling that this is more about fun than really being close. I remember having close friends in high school and at the university. We spent many hours a day together for several years. Can't fake that, and I doubt anything like that will be born through Snapchat or similar tools.

I've got a whole bunch of friends whom I know mainly from online interaction. Surely that's a new class of friendship, which is useful?

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#107

Post by qeternity »

prostoalex wrote: post #64
prklmn wrote: post #21

A major difference between between this tech boom and the dot com boom of the 90s is the general public had a real shot at investing in serious growth potential during the dot com boom. Now most of the growth is experienced under private ownership, then the grossly overvalued company is pawned off for the public to invest in. VCs have figured out how to extract most of the exciting gains.

It's the anomaly of QE, which diverted so much of the institutional private capital from essentially zero-yielding debt markets into private equities markets.

This wasn't an anomaly, it was the entire rationale for QE: force capital into risk assets.

EDIT: my username is not a coincidence here...

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#108

Post by lloeki »

thirdsun wrote: post #74
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #40

I used Dropbox for a few years, but ultimately switched to another big-name company service. Consumers now have great options available from all the big-name companies: Amazon Drive, Apple iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. Meanwhile, in the enterprise world it looks like Box is dominating. Given this, I think it's reasonable to ask: what's their value proposition in 2017? I hadn't been following them for…

I think they still have the most polished product, particularly when it comes to the web interface. I don't even have the Dropbox client installed and instead use the service via Arq to backup my music library which is about 500 GB and growing. However I hear the client is flawless and can sync files partially which is significant when it comes to large files. Occasionally I host and transfer large files and the web…

> However I hear the client is flawless and can sync files partially which is significant when it comes to large files.

Yes, Dropbox is one of the rare ones that handle rsync-style rolling checksum syncing.

It’s also the only one to sync FS-specific xattrs properly (like hidden extension on MacOS). Google Drive fails on both points.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#109

Post by lloeki »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #78
akg_67 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's their value proposition in 2017? I have been paid user of Dropbox for now 4+ years. The reason I have stuck with it because "It works! plain and simple." I have tried other storage services like Google, iCloud and Box. But none match the simplicity, consistency, invisibility, cross-platform, seamless features of Dropbox. Google is untrustworthy because you never know when they discontinue any service. They h…

>I still can't figure out how to access files in iCloud from my Mac and iPhone. On Mac I just open the iCloud folder and the files are there, just like Dropbox On iPhone I open the iCloud Drive app and the files are there just like on Mac, much like in Dropbox pp expect Dropbox uses list format. Personally I like iCloud currently more, but as you said it only works in Apple ecosystem (which I'm currently fine with).…

The iCloud Drive folder is indeed "just files" but it’s stored sort of hidden in a wickedly long path†. Firing up a terminal and cd’ing into ~/Dropbox is arguably easier than having to drag and drop a file in there from Finder just to have the correct path.

† "~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs"

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#110

Post by lprd »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #40

I used Dropbox for a few years, but ultimately switched to another big-name company service. Consumers now have great options available from all the big-name companies: Amazon Drive, Apple iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. Meanwhile, in the enterprise world it looks like Box is dominating. Given this, I think it's reasonable to ask: what's their value proposition in 2017? I hadn't been following them for…

Dropbox user since 2010 here. Although I haven't 'thoroughly' compared Dropbox to other cloud based storage providers, the reason I've stuck with Dropbox this long is:

1. Backups all the photos I take with my iPhone automatically.

2. Service integration (E.g. Slack, 1Password, Alfred prefs).

3. Paper is pretty nice, I've been using it lately.

4. User interface is nice and clean.

5. Photo album creation/sharing is nice, but they are removing that feature on the 17th.

6. Screenshot sharing is nice.

7. Enjoyable & clean interface.

Having said that, I have noticed their drift to more enterprise based offerings. Their pricing is a bit steep as well. The only other two providers I've considered are iCloud and Google Drive. I'm not opposed to switching as long as those primary features are matched in another service. I'd also like to compare bandwidth, price per GB, security/privacy in other services. Anyways, just my two cents :)

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