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Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

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Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#211
post #197

If only it didn't use ~1GB of RAM, I used to be a huge fan of Dropbox and I'm still looking for that feature in coding. Something like an auto-github diff upload. I saw some stuff with this I think regarding the particular text editor that I use. My computer's are garbage that's why 1GB to Dropbox is a lot to me. Edit: I'm curious how OneDrive compares. I have Windows on a junk laptop I have but I don't use it to wor…

Hmm, I see 3 Dropbox processes two take less than 1MB and one takes 62MB of memory. Not saying Dropbox is super light but it is not too heavy.

Does Dropbox memory usage grow with storage? Asking because I am only using 5GB of storage.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#212
post #72

Still surprised Dropbox doesn't apply their UI/UX talent to taking S3 to the cleaners.

Doesn't Dropbox run on S3? Or is that the company that recently moved off AWS into their own datacenters? If so that was a good case study. (I'm an all 5 certified AWS guy and while I love it, I like seeing the counterexamples to keep my Kool-Aid ingestion in check).

They used to. They migrated off of it because cloud is too expensive. 2 big components to that :

1) traffic to the rest of the internet from the cloud is "wtf" expensive compared to the alternatives. If you can do your own peering (like dropbox does), this goes double.

2) Actual disk storage is too expensive as well. It doesn't compare favorably with what you can get by building a blackblaze pod [1] (just an example).

3) Cloud does not match their usecase. They are write-heavy instead of read-heavy. So as the cloud optimizes for internet serving, it actually moves further away from their optimal price point.

There's an episode of software engineering radio that has a lot of details from the horse's mouth:

http://www.se-radio.net/2017/03/se-radio-episode-285-james-c...

[1] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage-serv...

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#213

Finally an IPO that makes sense to me. I can understand the value of Dropbox. Stuff like Snapchat being worth billions just make me feel like I don't know how anything works anymore.

Dropbox is a utility/product/feature. It can be replaced. Snapchat is a network and therefore is open to network effects, i.e. the sum becomes greater than the parts. I think in ten years time Snapchat will look the more justified valuation, providing they execute. Dropbox are going to struggle unless they can innovate ontop of the current business model.

> I think in ten years time Snapchat will look the more justified valuation, providing they execute.

They execute what, exactly? I looked at their investors page. Doesn't make any sense. It's a sexting app!!!

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#214
I love dropbox but I ended up on google drive. I happen to have a business email address with them and I got 30G free then updated. Dropbox is better than Google but I was already on Google. If they offered some sort of package like Google does, they could have more people onboard.

Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just presented a deck on this topic today. The 30 year evolution of the document goes something like: Paper > Word Processing > Email Attachment > Collaborative (Google Docs) > Cloud Storage > Meta Information The last part, Meta Information, is the ‘conversation about the document’ and represents the evolution from a physical piece of paper that I hold in my hand to having a conversation around a document that I m…

I don't mean to offend or be crass but I couldn't help but laugh. I think you are overanalyzing documents. What you said could be word for word out of the Silicon Valley show script.

As I prefaced in my comment, I presented a deck (the need to move enterprise IIOT towards conversational UI) and the evolution of documents was a part of that. I don't sit around thinking of documents in such a lofty manner ;-)

If you disagree about the evolution, I'd love to discuss and learn more from your POV. Much like documents, I'm looking to evolve into meta conversations.

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