Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12) • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#101

Post by thruflo » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 8:44 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #89

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

I still don't get why DB hasn't come up with a business model to let people just self-host content out of their accounts. They basically offer an instant web-server experience for non-tech folks, but they cap bandwidth for downloads. - How awesome would it be if I could dump a bunch of mp3 files and an html page or index file or something, get a URL from the service and suddenly my band has a website. Then if I go to…

Their other acquisition today - Loom - is on the annihilate Flickr path.

I must say I do like your auto monetization angle though. If carousel is anything to go by, their 'we build UX ontop of your content' execution is so far a bit meh.

Trouble is, as Twitter showed, there's no long term joy in building a competitor to a service using its API.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#102

Post by tlrobinson » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #87

encoderer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. Nobody HAS to live in an $8k/mo 2br. Even here. You probably read that TC article which mentioned some apartments in a complex in Mountainview. Yes, it's expensive, but no, it's not 8k, it's half that. Moreover, what on earth would that have to do with acquihires? The GP's assertion was hyperbole. Acquihires are not the "default hiring method."

> Yes, it's expensive, but no, it's not 8k, it's half that. That's insane. I can live in a 4,000 sq foot 2 story 3 car garage in a very swank Chicago suburb for that price.

"suburb"

Yeah, it turns out there's a lot more space in suburbs than urban centers.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#103

Post by yeukhon » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #57

Ugh, Etherpad shoulda been copyleft. Hackpad is a travesty for being so non-transparent that they're just a tweak of Etherpad.

I've only seen HackPad and my impression is it was built upon Etherpad. Someone confirm that? I don't want to sign up a new account just to find out.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#104

Post by joeframbach » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #95

cdelsolar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a cool idea. Why don't you build it?

I don't own dropbox.

OwnCloud's plugin architecture allows for all of these things mentioned. But plugin authoring for OwnCloud is opaque and tedious. There's a Hello World and a few examples, but the environment isn't fun to work around.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#105

Post by Goopplesoft » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #78

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

True in part, but we haven't seen people flocking to Google Drive in droves, despite the fact that their offering is now bigger and better than Dropbox's. There's something to be said for getting even the little things right.

And I'm sure something to be said for transitional friction.

To me dropbox is very simple: a folder you stick your things in and it syncs. I'm sure Google/SugarSync/Box/Drive etc do that just fine. I rarely if ever go on the dropbox site.

Why haven't I switched to a cheaper option? Too much friction to move things over.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#106

Post by Goopplesoft » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:23 PM UTC

m3rc wrote: post #74

notastartup wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This almost sounds like Facebook. Buying virtual reality was the final smoke signal of danger. Microsoft has a tough time competing with Google and Apple. It has decades of experience and loads of cash to burn and still be standing.

How exactly does a "final smoke signal of danger" work? What happens if there's another smoke signal?

I think in his usage final = definitive. As in there may be more, but that signal was the 'were in danger' moment. Not that I agree, just clarifying for him.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#107

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

tlrobinson wrote: post #102

toomuchtodo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, it's expensive, but no, it's not 8k, it's half that. That's insane. I can live in a 4,000 sq foot 2 story 3 car garage in a very swank Chicago suburb for that price.

"suburb" Yeah, it turns out there's a lot more space in suburbs than urban centers.

Point taken. In downtown Chicago, I can get an extremely nice 2000sqft+ 2 bed/2bath luxury condo with 2 parking spaces, and still have money left over at $4K/month.

I still believe SFBA real estate to be insane.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#108

Post by UVB-76 » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

encoderer wrote: post #84

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

"Acquisitions like this never go to plan." That kind of absolutism sounds silly to me. And my analysis of the situation is different. I see it as dropbox adding a services layer on top of the platform of storage they built. You already see other companies doing this -- using the dropbox platform. If I'm dropbox, I see a lot of opportunity there.

The Dropbox 'platform' is razor-thin, and their core offering is fast becoming a commodity.

At the moment, their business model doesn't extend much beyond brokering storage space. They are simply a middle-man between end users and Amazon S3, whose value add is some software that makes the process of storing and sharing files relatively pain-free.

They're good at what they do, and their software is nice, but in the long-run, there isn't much money in what they do.

Diversification is the obvious course of action, but it pits them against major players like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. All of these could probably afford to offer unlimited storage to all their users tomorrow, and if they got the software right, could render Dropbox redundant.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#109

Post by UVB-76 » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

d0m wrote: post #93

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

Real-time editing of documents might very well be in their vision.. and if they can get an incredible team, what's the problem?

The problem is monetizing real-time editing of documents. Ideas welcome.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#110

Post by bane » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 9:56 PM UTC

dkroy wrote: post #98

bane wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own dropbox.

This all could be accomplished with their api and your own web-server. The coding would be the hardest part though from an effort standpoint.

I actually think DB should be the webserver in this case.

Why can't I just make a "web-server" folder in my dropbox, drop a bunch of html, js and css and a few image files in there, get a URL and voila, instant website?

You sorta can already in truth, but they don't like it and the bandwidth is pretty severely capped on these kinds of sites. Make it part of the paid account (with x-fer up to 1GB/mo or whatever) and have high bandwidth users pay more?