Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The new Dropbox

blog.dropbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 590 posts

Re: The new Dropbox

#181

Post by chrismeller »

lowercased wrote: post #112
chrismeller wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bit harsh. While I understand not wanting to perform a new OS update (at least not immediately) or not being able to (they deprecate old hardware too) I do understand that it’s a matter of resources and that most people are going to be on a handful of your most recent releases, so it makes sense to spend your time on those. At the same time (most) people don’t actively seek to disable updates for things unti…

> it also seems like a relatively reasonable ask for them to version things and continue to support that functionality for quite a long time. Or... just don't force an upgrade. Notify me at some point that it might not be 'supported' after a certain date, and subject to data loss, etc. We understand with many other pieces of software that after a certain date, they may still 'work' but we won't get support. There's c…

> Or... just don't force an upgrade. Notify me at some point that it might not be 'supported' after a certain date, and subject to data loss, etc. We understand with many other pieces of software that after a certain date, they may still 'work' but we won't get support.

> There's certainly some security risks to deal with there, and perhaps reminders closer to cutoff dates would help?

That was actually my whole point. If you have security updates to push, then push them. An automatic push should not break my existing functionality under normal circumstances. There will always be extraordinary situations where it’s required, and at some point you do have to make the tough call that the hundred people still using something will just have to deal with it... but it shouldn’t be the norm.

Re: The new Dropbox

#182

Post by neverminder »

And yet still no changes in pricing. For individuals it's either 2 GB free or 2 TB for 12 euro per month, nothing in between. I'd be fine with 100 GB. Dropbox has native linux client, but shit pricing, Google Drive has better pricing, but no linux client.

Re: The new Dropbox

#183

Post by s1mon »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #161
passthejoe wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the "killer" feature of Google Docs/Sheets is the ability of multiple users to be in the document at the same time, all making changes, and all those changes being seen by all in real time. I don't think that shared Dropbox files can replicate this same functionality, so maybe apps on their side is the way to bridge the gap.

This is also possible with Sharepoint from Microsoft, but you can open them all up in the desktop versions of those apps which I prefer.

Kinda sorta. Yes the MS applications are more powerful, but the collaboration tools still are not as real-time as Google. My work was forced to switch from Google to MS, so I have years of experience with both. People often have to reopen files to see other people’s edits or there’s a huge lag that we never had with Google. We’re in SF, CA with a fast fiber connection. There’s also not exact parity between the desktop versions and the web versions of the applications. It’s easy to start to try to do something only to discover that, for instance, you can’t group objects in web PPT. Granted, with Google, while it’s pretty much always the same experience, but there are the long tail features which are missing.

Re: The new Dropbox

#185

Post by archagon »

mbreese wrote: post #65

Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? I use Slack and Zoom often, but I have never once thought — gee I really wish I could just open up this presentation in Dropbox directly into my Zoom meeting. I just don’t see the integration working in that direction. Sure, Dropbox should make sure that it’s available as a provider to save/open files for other programs — that make sense. The integ…

This is the problem with VC funding: any simple utility will inevitably become a confusing tangle of services that nobody wants. Dropbox became ubiquitous because it was a dead-simple folder that automatically synced, but that just doesn't rake in the big bucks. So they're forced to glob on pointless features until the whole thing collapses like a flan.

Re: The new Dropbox

#186

Post by wlesieutre »

larrywright wrote: post #110
peternicky wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your feedback resonates with me when I think about my experience with nearly every new software I come across. If it isn’t a monthly subscription (or the yearly option where I am ‘saving’ money) being shoved down my throat, more than likely I am being propositioned to pay for features that I simply don’t care about. One example, Airtable, has paid plans. In order to get the feature I want, I need to upgrade to the se…

One thing that bites me is that a lot of products are marketed at businesses rather than consumers. There are things I’d use for myself or my family, but the pricing is not conducive to that. Leankit is a great example. I’d love to use it, but it would be way too expensive to justify. Basecamp is the same way (didn’t used to be). The additional features that are used to justify the high price are things that only a b…

Screenhero was great screen sharing utility until it turned into part of an $8 per user per month Slack subscription.

Re: The new Dropbox

#187

Post by ori_b »

mbreese wrote: post #65

Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? I use Slack and Zoom often, but I have never once thought — gee I really wish I could just open up this presentation in Dropbox directly into my Zoom meeting. I just don’t see the integration working in that direction. Sure, Dropbox should make sure that it’s available as a provider to save/open files for other programs — that make sense. The integ…

> Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”?

Turns out that it dies if you try to grow it near walled gardens. The soil doesn't suit it.

Re: The new Dropbox

#188

Post by mannykannot »

Majromax wrote: post #162
solatic wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever happened to the philosophy of “do one thing and do it well”? When you're a startup, you do something new and (hopefully) do it well. You get customers and you grow. Eventually you become an established company. You do your thing really well, and customers are happy to pay you the price you ask. You make a healthy profit margin and times are good. Competition takes notice. You keep doing things well, but yo…

> You keep doing things well, but your competition has a second-mover advantage. They get to work with newer tooling, no legacy codebase, all the benefits of a fresh start. They start to win your customers away from you. ... so you're saying the first-mover begins coasting and fails to invest in its product, while the plucky upstart puts in novel research and development. That might be common, but it hardly seems ine…

> That might be common, but it hardly seems inevitable.

You have circularized the discussion. Solatic's post is not suggesting that it is inevitable, as it is a response to the question "what's wrong with doing one thing well?"

Re: The new Dropbox

#190

Post by jedisct1 »

This is awful.

I'm a Dropbox Pro user, using it to store documents that have to be accessible from all my devices, as well as to share galleries with my clients.

None of these integrations with Slack and Zoom make sense. I don't need them, and now that a product I used to trust for its simplicity and reliability has become a horribly bloated beast, I don't trust it any more.

This is bad, Dropbox. Maybe sell this as a totally different product, but for people, including corporate users, that only want reliable file syncing, this is a big turn off.

Post reply on HN