31–40 of 199 posts
I'd hope their customers are also looking at the security of their data in light of this and seeking out alternatives.
I'd be shocked if Dropbox is still in business in 5 years. It's kind of sad because it was the first mover and I loved the service when it was the only one, but now there are a million options that are probably just as good. Not to mention they've never made a dime on me personally or anyone I know (and as I understand it that's true for 95% of their user-base). Our company actually banned Dropbox.com because we deci…
They'll be here in 5. 10 is the bigger question mark when files go away.
I very happily pay for Dropbox. I haven't found any of the alternatives as easy as Dropbox. The syncing is seamless.
My dayjob uses Box, and it works OK, but has just never seemed unique enough to switch over too.
I think I have the $100/year or whatever it is Dropbox plan, I honestly don't even know. I don't seem to run out of space, and it doesn't cost very much so I just don't think about it at all. That, to me, is the hallmark of a valuable service.
I'd be shocked if Dropbox is still in business in 5 years. It's kind of sad because it was the first mover and I loved the service when it was the only one, but now there are a million options that are probably just as good. Not to mention they've never made a dime on me personally or anyone I know (and as I understand it that's true for 95% of their user-base). Our company actually banned Dropbox.com because we deci…
Few of them have block-level sync or LAN sync. In practice, Dropbox is often much faster than alternatives, especially when syncing/modifying large files.
The only programs that are better at it are Bittorrent Sync and SyncThing. And they are specifically made for peer to peer syncing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
dropbox is so easy, people accidentally install the client on the way to their files. i dont see people accidently installing icloud. i cant see anyone making the case that icloud is EASIER to initialize than dropbox. it just ISNT better at being foolproof. no matter how foolish you are, you cant screw up getting dropbox going.
Dropbox easier to use on Windows, I will give you that. iCloud is DEFINITELY easier to use on Apple products.
It integrates really nicely to become the default document storage location for most (non-developer) apps as well.
The only trouble I had was to have it replace the "Documents" folder in the Dock so I could just treat it like a cloud version of the regular documents folder.
I'd be shocked if Dropbox is still in business in 5 years. It's kind of sad because it was the first mover and I loved the service when it was the only one, but now there are a million options that are probably just as good. Not to mention they've never made a dime on me personally or anyone I know (and as I understand it that's true for 95% of their user-base). Our company actually banned Dropbox.com because we deci…
> I'd be shocked if Dropbox is still in business in 5 years.
I agree that Google Drive, iCloud, Amazon Cloud Drive, Box, etc. are all viable competitors. But (admittedly, anecdotally) everyone I talk to seems to use Dropbox. Personally, I use it on all of my devices.
I also use Box for business-related storage, and Google Drive for presentations, documents, etc. I use Amazon Prime Photos to store my photo roll. I don't think that any of those detract from Dropbox's primary use case of sharing files between different machines. I don't think people think of Dropbox as "cloud storage," but instead as a way to move files back and forth and have constant availability on machines they use.
> Our company actually banned Dropbox.com
I work in information security, and although I haven't banned Dropbox from a network layer, I can certainly relate to the sentiment. You have to remember that it's not just corporate use that caused the Dropbox ban -- your sysadmins also don't want people putting work documents in Dropbox to work on from home, because so many people already use Dropbox in their personal lives. The fact that your organization blocked Dropbox, instead of just saying "we use Google Drive," speaks to the fact that so many people are already happy Dropbox users and would just as soon continue to use it.
That said, I agree with you wholeheartedly that Dropbox, if going for major corporate adoption, will fail in its endeavor. I don't think that Google Drive is the primary competitor -- in my opinion, it's Box. Yes, you have to actually pay for Box, but in many corporate environments, that's not really much of an issue.
Said another way, I predict Dropbox failing in a corporate environment for the same reason they will continue to succeed with personal users: businesses want "cloud storage," and personal users want "easy file share with myself."
Maybe I'll look back on this comment in a few years and see that I was dead wrong, but for now that's where I'd put my money.
Unless I'm reading this wrong, the takeaway from this article is that Dropbox is a reasonably successful company, with enviable brand-recognition and reach, that's `suffering' from being overvalued early on and is simply no longer hot and new. That seems like a reasonably good problem to have, and is certainly better than being a loss-maker.
For all of the employees that received options based on the inflated $10bn valuation, not a good problem to have.
This is the danger of VCs wanting everyone to be a unicorn, and structuring their firms around that mindset. I agree that a $5bn or $2bn company is fantastic. Until those with capital agree, however, founders are almost required to pitch a fantasy.
Dropbox has the same problem a lot of the moderately successful unicorns have; it's a good product managed by smart people that would be much better off as a right-sized stable lifestyle business a la 37 Signals / Basecamp than as an attempt at a world-beating massive-growth juggernaut like Google or Facebook. Unfortunately for them (and Evernote, and a whole host of others), once you've signed that deal for the huge…
Probably a few of them, but I'm guessing some other company with a similar business model would have come along with VC backing and eaten their lunch (sure, that company might then be in the exact same place as the current over-valued late stage companies).
Damned if you do, damned if you don't?