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Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#51

Post by TeMPOraL »

codazoda wrote: post #26
bane wrote: post #6

This feels like a step backwards. DB has struggled to figure out something beyond being a really great cloud-share drive thing, and sorta kinda messed around with using your DB to host media like photos (which would then make users desire to upgrade their space) and automagically supply some interface sugar around a pile of photos. But they could have kept going in that direction and competed with all of the photosha…

I suspect they just want to focus on their core benefit so that they don't stretch too thin.

The core benefit of Dropbox is being "a folder that syncs". They've pretty much nailed it at the very start, and all the recent changes seem to be only step backwards. Lack of ability to link directly to files (instead of their heavy and useless web UI with "download" button) is something that makes their product worse, from user's POV.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#53

Post by daenney »

baby wrote: post #39
codazoda wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use GitHub. I'm a developer, so maybe this is hard... They let you use their website to create a repo, add a file, and then in the settings specify that master is the source branch for GhPages so that it's available via the browser to the world at yourname.github.io/yourproject. You can even add a custom domain if you want.

is github pages limited to jekyll? Or can you host any kind of html page? I thought about it as well but it adds a lot of complexity. Git is not easy to learn. Oh wait, you're saying that you can do everything without using Git? That sounds good then.

You can host any kind of HTML. Jekyll is just there so you can check in Markdown and config and GitHub will generate the HTML for you whenever you commit. But it doesn't have to work that way. Plenty of static site generators also support GitHub Pages as a hosting method.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#55

Post by morganvachon »

onli wrote: post #20
cpg wrote: post #11

I relied on this "light" publishing for a few things and I'm quite pissed off. I did not notice any notification on this. To me, this should be done very very visibly and with tons of warnings. I used it to communicate screenshots with details, etc. Now all links are broken and I'm SOL with no viable solution to changing those links from documents, bugs, etc., etc. Very very very bad!

Oh, they definitely notified their users. There were emails and warnings in the UI, it was very visible. Really, you can't blame Dropbox there. However, one can still blame Dropbox for the change itself. I used this on several occasions, including hosting archives for academic publications. No way in hell I can change those links. Maybe that wasn't a wise choice, but at that time it looked like a good way: The link d…

> Maybe that wasn't a wise choice, but at that time it looked like a good way: The link did not give a clue about my identity, making peer review easier, and DB being a well-funded and known internet company those links were surely meant to work forever, cool URLs don't change is something they had to know. Boy was I wrong.

I also fell into the trap (back when I had an active Dropbox account) of using the Public folder and sharing links from there. At some point along the way, Dropbox started allowing one to share single files from any private folder without exposing the rest of the folder to the audience, and I started using that method instead. Still, even if I had stayed with Dropbox I probably would have some orphaned /Public links out there somewhere, thanks to this change.

I think we both could have avoided that trap by setting up a small storage VPS with a provider like Digital Ocean or Vultr and installing a document management system. It would still be fairly anonymous; a truly determined detective could find the owner but it would likely require a subpoena, which Dropbox would have been vulnerable to as well.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#57

Post by TeMPOraL »

msie wrote: post #28

What's wrong with the "shared link" functionality they are offering?

It's not a direct link to file, but a link to their UI which only then offers a "download" option. Besides being incredibly annoying (over a megabyte of useless JS and tracking crap), it kills off many functionalities that were enabled by public links being direct-to-file URLs.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#58

Post by daenney »

swiley wrote: post #18
dublinben wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly does Tor replace the ease of publishing something with Dropbox?

You just run a web server in a hidden service, it takes less than five minutes to set up. People without for can still see it with onion.to.

That's not answer to the parent's question. Tor has very little to do with the ability to host your website by just plopping HTML into the Shared folder you used to have on Dropbox.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#59

Post by 27182818284 »

cpg wrote: post #11

I relied on this "light" publishing for a few things and I'm quite pissed off. I did not notice any notification on this. To me, this should be done very very visibly and with tons of warnings. I used it to communicate screenshots with details, etc. Now all links are broken and I'm SOL with no viable solution to changing those links from documents, bugs, etc., etc. Very very very bad!

I was definitely notified at least once. I think I can recall two emails.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#60

Post by bigiain »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
mjevans wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they can't go that route because youtube (google), and twitch (amazon) are the only 600lbs gorillas that can do /something/ to stave off the insane 100lbs gorilla that goes for the jugular (MPAA/RIAA and the like). Photo-gallery, as you've noted opens them to competing with other such providers... who all seem to eventually race towards throwing ads on everything to try and make some profit. Freely acces…

> This mostly sounds like DB is out of areas they want to / feel they can succeed in tapping for new customers and thus they attempt to cut back on costs with the hope of inertia retaining the existing users. I'm okay with how Dropbox as-is as a Pro user, and have no problem giving them $100/year in perpetuity. A product must not constantly evolve/improve for it to succeed (I'm looking at you Github with your damn da…

I was pretty happy with paying for Dropbox as-was. Turns out they've now broken a bunch of image links in forum posts and websites I've shared using Dropbox since I joined in 2010 (and became a paying customer later). I will not be renewing my subscription - largely because of this change.

Part of my attention since they announced this change late last year has been taken up asking myself "which of those shared photos do I care enough about to go back to the relevant forum/website and update the link - if that's even possible?" And the realisation slowly grew - I probably don't _really_ care enough about broken links to images - especially on sites I not longer actively use - which raises the obvious question, why am I paying Dropbox at all then?

Sure - their product might need to "evolve" but if I'm paying for a pterodactyl and they've pivoted to small warm blooded mammals, they may well out compete all their dinosaur competitors, but I'm one of the customers who'll say "Sorry, I didn't ask for a mammal, where's my pterodactyl that I've been paying you for?"

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