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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

#401
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much storage do you get for $27/year, and where? (just curious)

Cloudamo. 100GB. I was managing something like 9.2GB on my Dropbox, so it'll be a big jump. They say you can upgrade storage space but I don't know how the pricing works for that.

Thanks. I checked, and it costs $15/year per additional 100 GB. Hence it reaches Dropbox’s $120 at 720 GB. Of course, you also get a managed NextBox instance for that price.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#402
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…

> ...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. Microsoft 365 allows you to download the desktop app versions of Office. No need for an internet connec…

Until you get a message that you cannot save until it verifies your account again. Multiple people at my company including me got hit with it on OSX.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#403

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…

> That's the 64,000 dollar question, isn't it? It seems like three months is pretty typical. When someone gets six months most people call them "lucky". When someone gets a year people call it "unheard of". No whether that's fair or not is anyone's guess. That's an interesting take from the point of view of the USA. They address international DropBox employees in passing in the letter. For Mexico, by law companies ha…

As an American who has friends in sane countries, I feel the same way. But keep in mind we still have unemployment insurance in the US, where the government pays you for a few months after you lose your job (although it's capped pretty low). Also sometimes the way the USA does it makes sense too.

I was at a company that did a layoff once where they wanted to get rid of some underperformers in Europe, but Europe had such strong employment protections, the company was forced to get rid of good people in the USA instead to maintain cash flow.

After the layoff, I had coworkers in Europe who literally just stopped showing up, but had to be paid for six months anyway.

If the US had similar protections, the company would have just closed up shop and put 200 people out of work, instead of just a few.

Now if the US could just get a decent social safety net, then the way the US did things wouldn't be so bad.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#404
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of the page itself: the percent scroll bar on the top of the page is quite nice and I wish more articles did this.

That’s what the regular scroll bar should be for, instead of auto-hiding.

yet another instance of webapps going full circle when it comes to ui.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#405

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…

The problem is that maybe Steve Jobs was right after all and Dropbox is a feature not a product. Dropbox file syncing is best in class but for the vast majority of users that is probably not the most important thing for them. Most people won't run into the hard edge cases that Dropbox has solved better than the others. And something like Google Drive derives it's value from he fact that is deeply integrated into GSui…

Maybe Steve Jobs is right, but maybe it's also good for the world if you can build a sustainable business on a feature.

In the world of music, an effects pedal or guitar stomp box is more "feature" than "product". You can't write a song just using a chorus pedal. But there are many many thriving companies that do nothing but produce and sell pedals.

Much of this likely rests on the fact that the "protocols" that music gear use to talk to each other are simple, well-established, and legally unemcumbered. Also, for reasons that aren't clear to me, even dominant companies in the market do not seem to have pushed very hard to extuinguish that interoperability in anti-competitive ways. Or, at least, not yet.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#406

Dropbox is often cited as a success story when it comes to startups. But makes me think, is this what we should call successful companies? Companies that takes others money, grow the company until they've grown too much and need to fire people because of their poor decisions? Sure, Dropbox is a whole of 13 years old, which is infinity time on the internet, but considering the rest of the ecosystem with businesses (wh…

The point of taking others' money really isn't relevant, as those investors have had their exit when Dropox IPO'ed almost 3 years ago. Today's announcement is a product of the company Dropbox is today, not then.

It's absolutely relevant. The need for those investors to even have an exit is what set them on the course to IPO. Today's situation is a direct result of investors herding them in this direction.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that maybe Steve Jobs was right after all and Dropbox is a feature not a product. Dropbox file syncing is best in class but for the vast majority of users that is probably not the most important thing for them. Most people won't run into the hard edge cases that Dropbox has solved better than the others. And something like Google Drive derives it's value from he fact that is deeply integrated into GSui…

> Dropbox is a feature not a product. When you are against FAANG every product is just a feature.

Maybe only if you constantly update "FAANG" such that every tech company who actually succeeds in creating a competitive or impactful product just gets their letter added to "FAANG," and all the companies that fail to make a huge impact automatically get considered "only features." We already see that a lot. Some people wedge Microsoft into the acronym and/or leave out other letters. And Netflix's product on the face of it is certainly what we would consider a feature for most big software companies (and indeed many of them have a competing streaming service). If, for instance, Netflix significantly declines in popularity in the next few years, we might just drop it from "FAANG," and someone might still say "When you are against GAFAM every product is just a feature."

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#408

Clients share files with me using Dropbox so I need a Dropbox account. My Dropbox account is now close to full and I have to "manage it". I don't like how files shared with me count against my quota and I don't like having to babysit a service my clients use to share files. I wonder how many business owners "just pay" to make the nag messaging go away.

On iCloud, "A shared folder only takes up space in the owner's iCloud storage."

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210910

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#409
post #380

Dropbox lost me permanently as a potential customer with their greed and disregard for user experience. Constant nagging if you're at ~80% your free limit and the more recent draconian device limits for two examples. I hope they fail.

The absolute audacity of free tier customers lol. You were a liability on their balance sheet.

Yea, I'd understand the frustration if OP was paying for the service, but this reeks of entitlement. If you are a free user don't be mad when the company tries to convert you to a paid user.

A better example is how pushy Apple is with upselling their iCloud plans. I opened my laptop the other day and it auto-opened the iCloud settings app with the more expensive plan pre-checked.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#410

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…

> Dropbox and Evernote, for me are two very similar companies. I was also going to comment on their similarities. It's not mentioned as often, but Evernote's biggest selling point in the beginning was that they figured out how to make multidevice sync work. The product was good, but not unique. In the early days there were no competitors that could offer the comfort of Evernote's sync. Unfortunately both companies st…

> Anyone working at either company that's not looking for a job should be

What?? I don't know about Evernote. But did you look at the financials of Dropbox? They have a solid sheet so maybe take a look before you suggest people there to look for another job.

They decided to shift their focus to enterprise. They made a decision not to compete on the consumer side. Enterprises don't need a free tier. I don't know if that was a smart decision, but I'm sure they looked at the numbers and made the decision based on it.

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