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Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

nytimes.com

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Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#81

Post by toxik »

zer0defex wrote: post #77
Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

Nail on the head right here. The only thing Dropbox has these days is consumer confidence in it's syncing process. Beyond that, they trail every competitor feature-wise and frankly, they are succeeding despite their management, not because of it. Recent product enhancements have been, let's be honest, mediocre at best across the board and show no signs of that changing anytime soon. They exist now solely due to brand…

I agree. The whole Carousel thing has just been really confusing. It's telling me Carousel is deprecated, but there is simply no way to "go back" to Dropbox -- you still have to use it to synchronize photos to Dropbox. Stupid stuff.

The only reason I use Dropbox is that it is not made by either Apple, Microsoft or Google, so I can sort of trust that there will be client support for all platforms.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#82

Post by Scarblac »

cjensen wrote: post #58
graeme wrote: post #22

I very happily pay for Dropbox. I haven't found any of the alternatives as easy as Dropbox. The syncing is seamless.

I agree and I'm also a happy customer of Dropbox. But how long will it be until OneDrive or iCloud Drive catch up? I have 1TB of OneDrive space for "free" with Office. I have plenty of spare space in my iCloud storage plan. If either of those two options catch up to Dropbox's reliability, why would I stay with Dropbox? Long term, why will Dropbox survive?

Dropbox is much cheaper than either Office or an Apple device.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#83

Post by jasondc »

Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

sales and support?

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#84

Post by gdilla »

Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

Sales by far dominates their open reqs. https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/all

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#85

Post by tholmes »

malchow wrote: post #79
zer0defex wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nail on the head right here. The only thing Dropbox has these days is consumer confidence in it's syncing process. Beyond that, they trail every competitor feature-wise and frankly, they are succeeding despite their management, not because of it. Recent product enhancements have been, let's be honest, mediocre at best across the board and show no signs of that changing anytime soon. They exist now solely due to brand…

What if -- hold your breath! -- Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror!

Companies like that don't usually hire 600 people in 12 months, though.

Buuut I guess they could. I guess it just kind of looks like the explosive hiring you see sometimes when a company has projected huge growth but then falls flat and realizes it has way too many employees :(

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#86

Post by shasta »

Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

I expect they're going to branch out into physical storage. Prediction: by 2020, there will be thousands of DropBox locations where you can rent space ranging from a small locker to a large garage. If they're smart, they'll start in rural areas.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#87

Post by sobbybutter »

jonknee wrote: post #74
smt88 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is currently no way that 50 people (roughly the number of employees at Basecamp) could support a Dropbox-like product at scale. It's just impossible. At their scale, the technical challenges of maintaining a decent user experience (good transfer speeds, little downtime, no lost data, etc.) are enormous.

Well luckily they have the revenues to have more than 50 people. There's nothing magical about Basecamp's size, it's just never going to be a dynasty.

Why do you say that?

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#88

Post by rpgmaker »

ErikAugust wrote: post #42
toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple. Please Apple. Replace your iCloud abomination with Dropbox when the time comes.

"In 2009, Steve Jobs wanted to pay more than a hundred million dollars for Dropbox. As Houston later told Forbes’ Victoria Barret, when he politely turned down his hero’s offer, Jobs declared that Dropbox was a feature, not a product." https://pando.com/2012/02/26/steve-jobs-was-right-dropbox-is...

That acquisition would've sucked for non-Apple dropbox users.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#89

Post by malka »

jl6 wrote: post #11

As an otherwise-happy Dropbox customer, it does concern me somewhat that there has been very little innovation in the core product for several years. They seem focused on building a halo of lock-in services instead.

for once, a product does not get heavier and heavier with discutable features. I'm not gonna complain, it happens rarely.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#90

Post by bobby_9x »

The problem is that Dropbox isn't that complicated. They were able to win in the beginning because they were a novel idea. Now that they have proven the business model, it will invite competitors (which has already happened).

A bigger company with more resources will eventually be able to put them out of business.

It would have been better to cash out. Unless they truly have something proprietary with a higher barrier to entry, it will be a difficult road ahead.

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