Mega will only succeed if developers take the fall • Hacker News Board

Re: Mega will only succeed if developers take the fall

#21

Post by eurleif » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:51 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #20

All someone has to do is release a white-label, searchable aggregator for links and keys, with instructions on how to copy-paste the key to decrypt the file. No need to interact with the Mega API at all. The developer releases it with a collection of Creative Commons content, legally says "This should only be used for open-access content," and open-sources or sells the source code. Then these sites pop up all over th…

>Since the aggregator's original authors never intended it for piracy, they're blameless, and the operators who use the site take all the risk of takedowns.

Are you sure? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/coder-charged-for-g...

Re: Mega will only succeed if developers take the fall

#22

Post by Angostura » Mon, Jan 21, 2013, 12:03 AM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #18

brownbat wrote: post #5

The article seems to be pulling in two directions on MEGA: 1. It's identical to Dropbox (or spideroak, or tarsnap, etc.) 2. Its only viable use case is piracy. These two claims seem at odds... If nothing else, it's Dropbox where I get 50 GB of free space. If Dropbox can be legitimate and viable, I don't see why this can't (once they work through some kinks and get a good client).

No, he is saying it cannot compete with DropBox/box.net/etc - those are very good products that focus on cloud storage/backups, not 'secure' sharing of files; and the only way for it to make money is through it's affiliate program, which is very likely to cause legal trouble. Right now it is not competing with DropBox at all, since it doesn't offer client apps or effortless syncing.

Oh, I like Dropbox a lot. But you know what? For 50GB free, I'm willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience.

Re: Mega will only succeed if developers take the fall

#23

Post by Sami_Lehtinen » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 6:19 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #5

The article seems to be pulling in two directions on MEGA: 1. It's identical to Dropbox (or spideroak, or tarsnap, etc.) 2. Its only viable use case is piracy. These two claims seem at odds... If nothing else, it's Dropbox where I get 50 GB of free space. If Dropbox can be legitimate and viable, I don't see why this can't (once they work through some kinks and get a good client).

Well http://adrive.com has offered 50 GB free for several years. If they want to make news, they should offer much more.