Dropbox CTO Resigns

Post by damnyou » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #30

damnyou wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "products" are actually bad when they lock you into an ecosystem like the company Steve Jobs headed does.

I typically hear the categories as feature, product, platform (aka ecosystem). Apple is a platform/ecosystem. Dropbox is a feature/product, but definitely not a platform. In SV, "just a feature" has a derogatory connotation, sort of like "lifestyle business". It causes people who run feature companies to try to get away from this characterization – even if it means stretching their business into something that it can…

Post by tzs » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #33

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

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. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software In all seriousness, have you looked at OneDrive + Office365? For $70/year you get 1 TB of storage, a client that works on all platforms, plus M…

Post by kirb » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

plorkyeran wrote: post #96

NoPicklez wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve also said "There’s no better mobile computing tool than your finger"... Now they're rolling out mouse support on the iPad.

Mouse support on iPadOS is explicitly an accessibility feature. It's pretty awkward to use and not what you'd choose if you have a choice.

Post by alphabettsy » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

balladeer wrote: post #99

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

> once iCloud launches file sharing As an iPhone and MacBook user I'd have happily done that iff it was useful or accessible to my friends and family who are not in the fruit company ecosystem (and that's the majority in my case). Because I really don't think Apple is going cross platform anytime soon https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204174 https://support.apple.com/kb/ph2609

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 11:18 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #55

jonknee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs was early, but not wrong about Dropbox being a feature and not a product. I just want a folder that syncs extremely reliably, that's it. They've gone down the corporate rabbithole and now call themselves a "smart workspace" whatever that means.

Maybe, but a feature that works is worth more than a product that doesn't. Dropbox always works, everywhere. I'm old enough to remember a world pre-Drobox (and pre-high bandwidth). I used to work at different places. I kept a laptop in each office, and carried with me Iomega disks that I synced every morning. It was slow and complex and error-prone. Alternatives from either Apple or MS will never work as well, they w…