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Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

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Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#391

Post by cgearhart »

surajrmal wrote: post #319
cgearhart wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Box ate their lunch in the corporate sphere and they have a lot more competition in the consumer space from things like OneDrive and iCloud Drive. The only reason I still have Dropbox at all is because I don’t have a reason to pull the plug—and it wouldn’t have to be much of an excuse.

I wonder if the omission is due to HN bias of disliking Google, but Google Drive has the largest market share in the segment Dropbox competes in.

It was not meant to be a slight. I have Google Drive, but I primarily use iCloud and I was thinking in terms of desktop OS platform rather than major tech companies or market share; ie, I use iCloud on Mac, what’s the one MS built into windows?

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#392

Post by alxlaz »

dgellow wrote: post #345
alxlaz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you're hoarding data or want to avoid Microsoft ...or have access to a licensed copy of the "real" Microsoft Office, the desktop app, which doesn't lag (that much), where all keyboard shortcuts work, drag-and-drop isn't too surprising, and you can use over a slow/metered/non-existent connection (bus, train, airplane), so you don't really care about Office 365. Or you use it for something other than Word, Exc…

> 200$/year for three times more storage space isn't a terribly bad deal. If you use the storage, then sure. But I would assume that you can then find better prices for 3TB. You can see it this way: - if you want an office license, it's 70$/year, and as a bonus you have a dropbox equivalent for free for 1TB. - if you want some storage, up to 1TB, OneDrive is 70$/year, and as a bonus you have access to the complete of…

> If you want an office license, it's 70$/year, and as a bonus you have a dropbox equivalent for free for 1TB.

My point was that if you already have an Office license, it's 70$/year for something you already have + 1 TB (on what, until recently, used to be a pretty shoddy Dropbox clone, rather than a Dropbox equivalent -- but maybe it's improved in the meantime). In that case, there's no bonus.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#393

Post by codemac »

jonny_eh wrote: post #383
aeturnum wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of smaller tech businesses that could make a good living for a few hundred folks, but are extremely vulnerable to FAANG companies putting out a half-baked competitor. Strategically, from the FAANG perspective, it makes sense to spend a little money (for them) dipping a toe into every pond "just in case." On the flip side, it makes bootstrapping a sustainable business extremely difficult. If Google give…

Why are we lumping in Netflix instead of Microsoft in the group of big tech?

Because the term was popularized by Jim Cramer on Mad Money referring to the growth of Facebook, Apple, Netflix & Google back in 2013.

$MSFT hadn't really taken off like the others until later that year.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#394

Post by jedberg »

sharps_xp wrote: post #322
jedberg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do we need it? Because we don't have a social safety net in the United States, so getting laid off could make you instantly destitute. > why do employers give it? To maintain their community reputation. In the future when they hire again, it's easier to paper over a layoff if you can show that you tried to take care of the employees. Also because it's the ethical thing to do. > should one negotiate it? Usually…

what is a scenario where the employee would have leverage in a layoff? it’s hard to imagine except if something unethical/wrongful was going on leading up the layoff: sexual harassment, discrimination

Usually when you are a high level employee they want you to sign an anti-disparagement clause. For example the COO here. Even if Dropbox did nothing wrong, it could really hurt their business if she went around giving talks about how awful Dropbox is, or talking about internal politics to the press.

There is a good chance someone would even pay her for that information, so she has leverage by saying "you're going to cut off my future income, how much is that worth to you?".

Or a situation where there was some questionable behavior and there could be a lawsuit about wrongful termination. Usually the severance comes with a waiver where you waive your right to sue the company. So it's a negotiation of how much that waiver is worth to both you and the company. The higher up you are, the more likely there is room for negotiation there on the value of a possible lawsuit.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#395

Post by dharmab »

emptyparadise wrote: post #133
tw04 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, mega-corps aren't the problem. As Steve Jobs famously said: they're a feature, not a product. Even if you eliminate Microsoft, Google, AND Amazon from the discussion, the list of alternatives is endless. Synology and QNAP both have a "free" sync and share client. WD, Seagate, Samsung, Apple, not to mention the open-source options out there. Do the big 3 put MORE pressure on Dropbox, sure. But they never p…

Why can't a good feature survive on the market?

One reason is that there's friction with purchasing. If a company already buys Active Directory and O365, it's much easier to get OneDrive added on than it is to set up a new vendor like Dropbox.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#396

Post by dharmab »

brundolf wrote: post #71
raiyu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signing into the same account on multiple devices creates security and ownership issues, much better to be able to delegate permissions and also keep ownership clearly understood.

Is that really a concern within a household? Give each person a top-level directory

I can tell you don't have any horny teenagers in your household :)

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#397

Post by munificent »

aeturnum wrote: post #309
avrionov wrote: post #299

Dropbox and Evernote, for me are two very similar companies. Startups that innovated on a great user experience and had a flawless execution in the beginning. I was an early adopter of both of them, and they worked well. Dropbox sync between different machines worked like magic. I still remember some of the nightmares my coworkers had with OneDrive in meetings when the files for the presentations were missing because…

There are lots of smaller tech businesses that could make a good living for a few hundred folks, but are extremely vulnerable to FAANG companies putting out a half-baked competitor. Strategically, from the FAANG perspective, it makes sense to spend a little money (for them) dipping a toe into every pond "just in case." On the flip side, it makes bootstrapping a sustainable business extremely difficult. If Google give…

I haven't given any real thought to this, but maybe in terms of regulations, we should think of free software products as another kind of price dumping. It's essentially price dumping down to zero.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#398

Post by snarkypixel »

emptyparadise wrote: post #133
tw04 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, mega-corps aren't the problem. As Steve Jobs famously said: they're a feature, not a product. Even if you eliminate Microsoft, Google, AND Amazon from the discussion, the list of alternatives is endless. Synology and QNAP both have a "free" sync and share client. WD, Seagate, Samsung, Apple, not to mention the open-source options out there. Do the big 3 put MORE pressure on Dropbox, sure. But they never p…

Why can't a good feature survive on the market?

Because it can be copied and doesn't have a defendable business model.

For most people, consolidating many services into one is just more convenient, even if it means using a "good-enough" version of that feature.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#399

Post by passthejoe »

F00Fbug wrote: post #68

As a longtime Linux user I felt snubbed for when Dropbbox decided that ext4 was the only file system that they were going to support. God forbid that Red Hat decide that XFS was the default file system in RHEL7 and Dropbox couldn't make the effort to support the premier Linux distro? I'm 100% on Syncthing these days. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done and I'm happy there's no big company involved. I set it up…

I think Fedora is using Btrfs now. Does Dropbox not support Fedora and RHEL?

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#400

Post by busterarm »

brundolf wrote: post #389
busterarm wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local NAS includes replication to cloud storage and is encrypted so not super useful if stolen. I prefer having access from my devices without the replication.

Fair. I'm still curious how you use that much space?

I create a lot of media and shoot raw.

I do back up my Steam library, btw, because occasionally they remove games. That folder is at about 4TB.

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