Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#141

Post by soroushjp » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 11:34 AM UTC

sdrinf wrote: post #119

raiyu wrote: post #38

The fact that Dropbox's revenue is well above Box's if the rumors in the article are true is a great positive sign. As is being cash flow positive which would indicate that if they are burning cash it isn't at the rate of 2x revenue that Box has been a victim of. However, the vision they are selling will not come to pass. That of them being a collaborative platform. Google docs, slack, and a myriad of other tools hav…

| In the meantime Dropbox's core offering of syncing and sharing files seamlessly as well as providing more security minded options for businesses is something that no one else has quite gotten right. There is absolutely no mention whatsoever neither in the article, nor in your analysis above about Owncloud. Owncloud (or any OSS fork thereof) is an existential threat to Dropbox's core offering: while the consumer sid…

I went on a little adventure the other week of setting up my own NAS server, and checked out Owncloud and competitors. Even ignoring issues like feature parity and third-party app integration, I think the setup costs of something like this are still way too high for consumers. While VPS providers may make this process easier (even deploying complete Dropbox clones with no tech knowledge required), they'd still be doing it at a significant disadvantage to Dropbox's scale and expertise. It was clear to me very quickly just how much work has gone into giving Dropbox the level of polish it has. Note that this doesn't even address other competitive moats such as brand recognition and distribution partnerships.

Not saying that Dropbox doesn't face business risks -- but I think the open-source alternatives will not be the biggest risk ulttimately in the mainstream market.

I do think they will face margin pressures as long as Google/MSFT/Apple/Amazon believe this to be too important of a market to cede to Dropbox.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#142

Post by yardie » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 11:54 AM UTC

megablast wrote: post #76

username223 wrote: post #44

> In addition to selling utilities to keep digital files safe and accessible, Dropbox intends to offer software that businesspeople use for hours each day to create content and get work done. Aaaaagghh!!! Just... no. Dropbox used to do one thing well (modulo creepy stuff [1]): sync a directory across multiple computers. This wasn't so hard to do, but shockingly, Apple and Google didn't just implement this feature and…

Of course, you have to grow. You have to move into new areas. That is what everyone does, that is how the world works.

No, everyone does not do that and the rest of the world does not work that way. This train of thought is specific to capitalism (not to be confused with free market). Most large companies do a few things well and everything else mediocre or poorly. Most small companies do a few things well and everything else poorly.

The difference is a small company recognizes it can't afford to do those things poorly and won't pursue it. Large companies will keep dumping money into bad, poorly planned products. See Apple and cloud, Google and everything not Pagerank, Microsoft and mobile.

The world has more small companies than large ones.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#143

Post by chmaynard » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 12:30 PM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #71

I predict the quality of free Dropbox service will go down (or not significantly improve) after they become publicly-traded, similar to what happened to Facebook, since the stockholders will force them to monetize the free accounts. They why I avoid using free but proprietary services.

> I avoid using free but proprietary services.

That eliminates a rather large fraction of the most popular online services, including Twitter, Skype, Spotify, Google Search, Square Cash, OKCupid, GitHub, and so on. Oh well, there's always Hacker News. Oops, Y Combinator owns that.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#144

Post by wunki » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

automatwon wrote: post #116

My primary use case for Dropbox, actually, is getting videos onto my iPhone. You can't simply drag and drop a video file into the phone as a mass storage device. With ITunes, the sync feature purportedly sync the video to the device, and consumes space accordingly, but there's no way to access the video on the device. It's actually way faster for me to upload a video to Dropbox from my computer, and download the vide…

I'm using Waltr[0] for this, works great.

[0]: https://softorino.com/w2

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#145

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 2:37 PM UTC

asher_ wrote: post #85

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #34

As a former Dropbox user, I can't imagine investing in them. For me, their plans are just way out of line with regard to pricing. So out of line that I'm going to go to the trouble of moving all of my stuff to Google Drive or OneDrive. And I hate their ransom policy of giving you free space for a while due to phone promotions or whatever and then taking it away. You are screwed and can't access your own stuff until y…

I agree. Dropbox are massively more expensive than competitors like Google Drive. I stopped using Dropbox years ago when I realised that shared files and folders take up quota for ALL people that have access to it. This is absurd, and is a terrible experience when you're trying to share something with someone and they then have to upgrade their account. I used to love Dropbox, but the pricing model is terrible.

Wow, I did not even know about the shared part.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#146

Post by _razvan » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #23

orthoganol wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I passed when I learned that in order to sync target directories they all had to be moved and live under the /Dropbox namespace, and that I would now be working within that namespace for my various projects. No thanks. That was a while ago - maybe they are different now?

Which alternative are you using ? (if any)

Syncing outside folders to Dropbox used to be such a pain because symlinks/junctions don't sync changes as they happen (you need to restart Dropbox each time in order for it to sync changes) so that's why we built Boxifier. Disclaimer: I am one of the founders.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#147

Post by runako » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

new299 wrote: post #113

ternaryoperator wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've made no moves to encrypt data service side From their website[0]: "Dropbox file data is stored in discrete file blocks that are fragmented and encrypted using 256-bit AES." [0] https://www.dropbox.com/security

It's very clear from that page that the data is sometimes transmitted unencrypted. It's also clear that if it's encrypted server-side it's encrypted with a key known to dropbox (which in my opinion makes the encryption meaningless). So, technically it's possible that my statement was slightly misleading. It may be encrypted. But the conclusion is, they have access to all your data. It would be available under warrent…

> they have access to all your data

Curious: how would one design a service like Dropbox with Web + mobile + desktop clients such that the service operator could not access the data?

(This is a mass-market service, so I mean without requiring Web users to install certificates, etc.)

What design changes would you suggest they make?

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#148

Post by kcanini » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

pb wrote: post #64

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I talked to a friend just before Christmas whose firm made a good portion of their returns on the insight that VC firms, IPO participants and the market in general all have gaps in how they evaluate the worth of a company and the fact that this gap has grown significantly in the past 5 years. Previously, companies went public much sooner and you could expect a match, not an exact one, but in the same ball park, betwe…

VCs don't get to take their profits until after the company exits. If they invest at a high valuation and then it IPOs at some lower price, there is no gain and the VC gets zero carry.

VC still gets that sweet 2% management fee per year.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#149

Post by gurkendoktor » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #107

new299 wrote: post #99

I'm slightly shocked that tech-types who in general seem to be against mass state sponsored surveillance continue to support Dropbox. Dropbox appointed Condoleezza Rice to their board. Rice supports warrentless surveillance [1]. They've made no moves to encrypt data service side. I hope their IPO fails spectacularly so that support of warrentless surveillance does not become the norm in tech companies. [1] Condoleezz…

I think most people recognize that they don't necessarily agree with everyone, especially when it comes to politics, and that refusing to work with people because you dislike their politics is, in general, not a smart thing to do. Not to mention not supporting companies because one of their board members takes a position you dislike on an issue.

There is a difference between disagreeing with positions and judging past actions. Rice didn't have fringe opinions that she occasionally ranted about on Facebook. The stuff on drop-dropbox.com was her full-time job, her life's work.

> refusing to work with people because you dislike their politics is, in general, not a smart thing to do

Like vaccinations, it can be effective when most people do it. I think (hope) many companies would have declined the chance to work with her.

Re: Dropbox Could Have One of 2017’s Most Interesting IPOs

#150

Post by raiyu » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

pricechild wrote: post #128

raiyu wrote: post #38

The fact that Dropbox's revenue is well above Box's if the rumors in the article are true is a great positive sign. As is being cash flow positive which would indicate that if they are burning cash it isn't at the rate of 2x revenue that Box has been a victim of. However, the vision they are selling will not come to pass. That of them being a collaborative platform. Google docs, slack, and a myriad of other tools hav…

> As is being cash flow positive which would indicate that if they are burning cash it isn't at the rate of 2x revenue that Box has been a victim of. I'm probably inferring something you didn't mean here. By "if they are burning cash" did you mean "yes they're wasting money, but still less than they're making so that's great" Or is it possible to be "cash flow positive" while spending >1x revenue?

You are correct and inferring the right thing, that even if they are burning cash it isn't substantial because you can't be cash flow positive and burn >1x revenue.