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The new Dropbox

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: The new Dropbox

#411

Post by vishvananda »

bluedino wrote: post #401
jwr wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you haven't looked? Try cloning a git repo, or unpacking a tarball with many files (doesn't matter if it's inside Dropbox or not) and observe the CPU usage of the Dropbox process. I checked right now and the Dropbox process on my machine has consumed a total of 39 minutes CPU time. That's 39 minutes of full-scale CPU usage. Even their "web helper" process (whatever that is) consumed two minutes and 41 seconds…

I don’t have a use case for cloning a git repo to Dropbox

the parent mentions in parentheses that the dir doesn't have to be in dropbox because it appears to monitor all files.

Re: The new Dropbox

#412

Post by Paul-ish »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #380
Traster wrote: post #12

I strongly feel this is a bad direction for Dropbox. Many companies have tried to integrate tools together. It's always half-baked simply because those tools aren't designed to be integrated. I find it kind of odd Dropbox would be bragging about a dropdown menu to create a Google doc. Surely if that's important to me I get Google drive - the integration will be better because the same company makes the different tool…

> Personally what I value is just basic cloud storage with a decent automatic sync. That reminds me of a pretty famous Quora answer (here https://www.quora.com/Dropbox-product/Why-is-Dropbox-more-po... ) that described why Dropbox succeeded: > Well, let's take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You'd put your stuff in it. It would sync. T…

That answer is 8 years old. Files seem to be disappearing from a large number of problem domains, in favor of webapps. That doesn't bode well for Dropbox if it is a trend that continues.

Re: The new Dropbox

#413

Post by GordonS »

liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

At least when I tried it a few years ago, the Windows client was also a crappy Python app that ate CPU and disk for around an hour after every startup.

Why? To detect changes, they were storing a snapshot and comparing everything on disk to the snapshot. Which is madness when Windows has methods that don't require reading every damn byte on the disk - at the least, they could use a filesystem minifilter driver, or the NTFS USN change journal.

As if that wasn't enough, after the startup scan they were using an unreliable method to detect further changes (same one as dotnet's FileSystemWatcher, I forget the name of the underlying Windows API).

And to top it all off, even with only 2 systems sharing the data, there were conflicts all the time that required manual resolution (and I seem to recall Dropbox wasn't very good about surfacing these when they happened). Then there was a data loss incident, I presume due to some kind of conflict snafu - Dropbox only support at the time was a forum, and they were completely uninterested in even acknowledging that there was an issue.

I switched to Seafile after that, and haven't looked back. I honestly don't understand why people would put up with that crap, but given the size of Dropbox they obviously do...

Re: The new Dropbox

#414

Post by thekyle »

azinman2 wrote: post #356
thekyle wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, corporations are not legally required to "grow, forever until the end of time", they are required to act in the interest of shareholders. Typically, that means returning value to shareholders of the company. Growing the company is one way to achieve that. Other ways include paying out a share of the profit the company is making via a dividend or using share buybacks to reduce the number of outstan…

Don’t utilities grow as we generally consume more and more resources? In the Caden of dividends, wouldn’t they also need to increase over time to act in the best interest of shareholders?

> Don’t utilities grow as we generally consume more and more resources?

Yes, you are correct. Most utility companies do grow to some extent, just very slowly. You also have to compare the rate that they grow against other metrics like GDP. If a company is growing slower than GDP you could make an argument that they're actually shrinking.

> In the Caden of dividends, wouldn’t they also need to increase over time to act in the best interest of shareholders?

Yup. In theory, if a company does not grow sales at all then their dividend should be able to grow at the same rate as inflation. Most companies do grow sales to some extent and thus are able to grow their dividend more than inflation.

For example, Coca-Kola has grown their dividend on average 7.46% per year. AT&T on the other hand has only grown theirs 2.26% per year which is closer to inflation.

https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/KO/dividends/dividend-growth

https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/T/dividends/dividend-growth

Re: The new Dropbox

#415

Post by Barrin92 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #380
Traster wrote: post #12

I strongly feel this is a bad direction for Dropbox. Many companies have tried to integrate tools together. It's always half-baked simply because those tools aren't designed to be integrated. I find it kind of odd Dropbox would be bragging about a dropdown menu to create a Google doc. Surely if that's important to me I get Google drive - the integration will be better because the same company makes the different tool…

> Personally what I value is just basic cloud storage with a decent automatic sync. That reminds me of a pretty famous Quora answer (here https://www.quora.com/Dropbox-product/Why-is-Dropbox-more-po... ) that described why Dropbox succeeded: > Well, let's take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You'd put your stuff in it. It would sync. T…

>No, shut up. Most of the world doesn't sit in front of their browser all day.

well, I've got bad news for the guy. Just being a data storage company is probably not a great business strategy because the web and competition have become ubiquitous.

Re: The new Dropbox

#416

Post by sonnyblarney »

microtonal wrote: post #11

Me and my wife ended both ended our Dropbox Plus subscriptions last weekend (after being paying users for five years or so). As a side-effect, my mom also cancelled her subscription (since she was using it to share photos with us). The primary reasons: - Constant nagging in the user interface to upgrade to Dropbox Pro or Dropbox Business. Don't want it, don't need it. - Accumulation of a lot of UI clutter over the ye…

"If Dropbox had just stuck to its nice, clean, and simple interface, focusing on syncing across machines with various OSes or file systems, we would still be happy, "

A thousand times, yes - are you listening Dropbox?

If you don't do this, you're going to get 'Zoomed' (i.e. basic company like Zoom comes along and eats your lunch for just doing the basic offer)

Re: The new Dropbox

#417

Post by 0x906 »

ndarwincorn wrote: post #394
0x906 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I self-hosted a Nextcloud installation and used 2x 4TB drives. The first is full dedicated to the Nextcloud use while the second is rsync-ed to the first every night. Then I deleted my 8 years old Dropbox account. Currently my only cloud provider is iCloud just for the photos, contacts, iwhatever backup.

Assuming the second drive is always connected to the machine & on, why are you opting for that nightly sync vs. mirroring the two disks in raid1?

It's been a stupid decision at the time of the setup. Now its already there, and any attempt to change it will have to erase the drives, and this is a huge pain in the arse.

Re: The new Dropbox

#418

Post by hdfbdtbcdg »

usaar333 wrote: post #357
Syzygies wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, their symlink handling is absurd, and they have the usual sanctimonious defense when questioned about this. To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong. A symlink is just a file, like any other. It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cl…

You are taking strong positions on what is right or wrong when there is no objective answer and tradeoffs both directions. > It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cloud service into special behaviour (like syncing folders elsewhere) are also wrong. You no more want a cloud ser…

> windows XP (the most popular OS when Dropbox came out!).

Symlinks actually worked in Dropbox when I used to use it in 2012...

Re: The new Dropbox

#419

Post by Baeocystin »

Paul-ish wrote: post #412
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally what I value is just basic cloud storage with a decent automatic sync. That reminds me of a pretty famous Quora answer (here https://www.quora.com/Dropbox-product/Why-is-Dropbox-more-po... ) that described why Dropbox succeeded: > Well, let's take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You'd put your stuff in it. It would sync. T…

That answer is 8 years old. Files seem to be disappearing from a large number of problem domains, in favor of webapps. That doesn't bode well for Dropbox if it is a trend that continues.

Hiding file systems is both en vogue and maddening for people who actually work with files. Which is everyone, even if they don't know it. The amount of assistance I've had to give even technically-competent users when it comes to even finding where the heck their data even is has skyrocketed over the past couple of years.

Re: The new Dropbox

#420

Post by liyanage »

Syzygies wrote: post #289
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

Yes, their symlink handling is absurd, and they have the usual sanctimonious defense when questioned about this. To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong. A symlink is just a file, like any other. It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cl…

This is a perfect description of my issue with their symlink handling, and their arrogant response to the complaint about it.
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