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Dropbox CTO Resigns

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Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#71

Post by dmix »

eloff wrote: post #63
cannonedhamster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't work on Linux which is what the quote you're referencing is talking about. Office365 comes with it's own challenges. Plus your documents are all scanned and there is no privacy protection, especially not from the US government.

Dropbox is a US company, I don't see how you get better privacy protection there. Plus Microsoft has a petty good track record, they've challenged US government requests for information in court, and fought to prevent the government from accessing data stored outside the country.

Dropbox has equal access to your files as Microsoft does. Which is why Syncthing/Bittorrent sync is very useful.

It's also limited to just being a shared folder feature.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#73

Post by frereubu »

Although I'm going off Dropbox because of their attempts to become a "platform" I think people are forgetting a bit of what file syncing was like before Dropbox and how far behind the competition still are (at least in my view). Block-level syncing (so entire files aren't transferred with each small change) and rock-solid reliability is a pretty compelling combination for me. This is particularly so given that their prices are a drop in the ocean as a percentage of total expenses.

I keep trying other services (they'd need to be hosted by someone else - I don't want the added headaches of managing my own setup), but none have come close yet.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#74

Post by apple4ever »

aaomidi wrote: post #27
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

And then the random client limit to 3. I've stopped using them since then.

I did as well. I actually wouldn't have been opposed to paying more for more clients, but they wanted $20 a month for a ton of space, which I didn't need. There was no in-between.

I switched to OneDrive which as actually been really amazing, even on Macs & iOS devices.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#76

Post by bitL »

tbrock wrote: post #38
bitL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox uses very sophisticated binary diff nobody else provides to minimize inbound/outbound traffic; this has some CPU/battery cost though. Competitors usually provide very dumb upload/download that might be less CPU/battery intense but much heavier on the bytes transferred. You simply might not be their target group.

Yeah, I don't think so. Their target group must be people with 10mb of files or less. Why would you need to binary diff when syncing dropbox to a new computer? Yet setting up dropbox for the first time on a new machine uses 100% of my CPU. The same S3 sync operation is barely noticible. When updating files, first check for changes with something ultra cheap like an md5 then, if changed, do the "sophisticated" stuff.

They need to store your data somewhere, they need to be able to reuse/serve chunks from other users that share the same file to make its storage cost efficient etc.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#77

Post by dheera »

jonknee wrote: post #23
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #18

Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a mature product: - Is slow - Demolishes my MBP's battery - Has not gotten simpler to use And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their competition is charging $0-1…

Steve Jobs was early, but not wrong about Dropbox being a feature and not a product. I just want a folder that syncs extremely reliably, that's it. They've gone down the corporate rabbithole and now call themselves a "smart workspace" whatever that means.

That's probably because shareholders and investors blindly want unbounded growth while customers want them to just work. It's sad but the venture capital and public market ecosystem cannot support a lot of awesome things like Dropbox.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#78

Post by bitL »

deanCommie wrote: post #28
bitL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox uses very sophisticated binary diff nobody else provides to minimize inbound/outbound traffic; this has some CPU/battery cost though. Competitors usually provide very dumb upload/download that might be less CPU/battery intense but much heavier on the bytes transferred. You simply might not be their target group.

Which may be a feature that belongs in the bygone era of lower network speeds and bandwidth limits.

Do you like higher bills on your iPhone when accessing your shared data? Not sure why would efficiency belong to bygone era. I'd rather expect CPU to handle this diff process with some dedicated instructions more efficiently in the future.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#79

Post by nunez »

ram_rar wrote: post #45

Dropbox has a tough road ahead. With Google Drive, Microsoft Word cloud suite and Box, its definitely getting tough to survive by just doing B2C. With their recent acquisitions they'll probably pivot to DocuSign like model. But they are definitely losing their niche.

Not really. B2C is lucrative because it's tough to lose corporate contracts (at the Fortune 100) unless you do something completely egregious.

Re: Dropbox CTO Resigns

#80

Post by bitL »

anyfoo wrote: post #32
bitL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox uses very sophisticated binary diff nobody else provides to minimize inbound/outbound traffic; this has some CPU/battery cost though. Competitors usually provide very dumb upload/download that might be less CPU/battery intense but much heavier on the bytes transferred. You simply might not be their target group.

I genuinely don't know, but are you sure that others don't provide this?

GDrive uses something internally but they don't expose it to public clients, so do they really provide it? (I might be outdated here, it's been a while I last checked)
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