Still fathoms me that Dropbox is worth billions of $ for the same functionality as FTP.
How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
31–40 of 133 posts
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#32I love my Dropbox. Except one thing. They still don't support SmartSync on their Linux client.
For all the people that commend Dropbox for supporting Linux, they now treat the Linux client as inferior.
To add insult to injury, they promote the SmartSync feature inside the preferences of the Linux client.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#33Slightly off topic, but I discovered the other day that shared folders count towards the disk quota for each account it's shared to.
I had several GB of photos shared with me on Dropbox, and it blew right over my free limit, despite the fact that none of them were actually mine. The photos also count towards the quota of the account sharing with me.
That's soured me quite a lot on Dropbox.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#34I love my Dropbox. Except one thing. They still don't support SmartSync on their Linux client. For all the people that commend Dropbox for supporting Linux, they now treat the Linux client as inferior. To add insult to injury, they promote the SmartSync feature inside the preferences of the Linux client.
It might not be as good as its windows and macOS counter part, but it’s much better than other vendor’s Linux clients.
The sheer fragmentation of Linux space makes something as complicated as smart sync not a very financially viable product to support.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
Google Drive is like "I guess you can use the desktop client instead of the web one". One Drive is like "I guess you can use a Mac". iCloud is like "I guess you can have non-Apple devices". Dropbox just syncs your files from and to anything you have, equally well. I'm pretty sure none of the others even have a Linux client at all, but Dropbox does.
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Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#36Still fathoms me that Dropbox is worth billions of $ for the same functionality as FTP.
And that’s exactly why they’re billionaires and you probably aren’t. It isn’t about functionality, it’s about ease of use. It’s the same argument used when MS-DOS was being replaced by the GUI.
Explain FTP to your Aunt Edna. Get FTP working where everything on all devices is in sync automatically. Comment on a file via FTP. Send a link to a file they can consume on a mobile device — including playing audio or video without downloading the file. Create access lists for folders.
Sure you could do it using FTP. Now do it cheaply at scale and make it work everywhere and then convince your non tech friends to use it.
Why bother with GPS when we could all use a map and compass? Dropbox made file syncing accessible to everyone cheaply and securely.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
Google Drive is like "I guess you can use the desktop client instead of the web one". One Drive is like "I guess you can use a Mac". iCloud is like "I guess you can have non-Apple devices". Dropbox just syncs your files from and to anything you have, equally well. I'm pretty sure none of the others even have a Linux client at all, but Dropbox does.
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Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#38When Google Drive and iCloud and One Drive all cropped up, copying the same service with the addition of deeper integration into different devices and software, I was worried Dropbox would be unable to compete. But they've hung in there, and I remain a happy customer.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
Good comment. Dropbox is like how companies used to be: offer an amazing service and stay in your lane.
These days, I wouldn't be surprised if Google sent me an email that said: Hey Widgetco, become a Certified Ad Partner to join our Managed Preferred Storage Solution or else your files on our legacy system will be deleted when it is deprecated in 24 hours. Also please fill out this Google Form (Google.com Account required; get one, it's easy!) and in this Google Form please tell us more about your company, including: how many employees do you have, what is in your product pipeline. Also would you like an investment from GV? No? You have violated our Terms of Service!
(Two weeks later)
We're proud to announce Widgety by Google, launching today!
(Nine weeks later)
Widgetco's website doesn't adhere to Chrome's latest Super Safeweb standards.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
I used Dropbox in the early days because of the ability to place a file in your public folder and allow others to download a copy of that file using a standard URL. You could share a file with your colleagues by simply emailing a URL to the file. No other service was as straightforward at the time. When that feature was later removed, I stopped using Dropbox.
They removed the public folder but you can still share a file(s) via url via their website.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#40Slightly off topic, but I discovered the other day that shared folders count towards the disk quota for each account it's shared to. I had several GB of photos shared with me on Dropbox, and it blew right over my free limit, despite the fact that none of them were actually mine. The photos also count towards the quota of the account sharing with me. That's soured me quite a lot on Dropbox.
That's probably done to prevent people from creating many free accounts and sharing folders with each other to simulate having more storage space.