Introducing Google Drive... yes, really • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#91

Post by hej » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

TomatoTomato wrote: post #78

hej wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link? Their pricing is confusing as hell, no clear information anywhere.

https://www.google.com/settings/storage/?hl=en

Alright, thanks! That's better. I couldn't find the link to that page anywhere on the Google Drive site, though. I was led to the old pricing page.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#92

Post by andrewljohnson » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

The pricing of this service is an eye-popper. I've avoided cloud backups for years because of Dropbox-like prices.

At $256/TB/year, I can back up all my stuff, and never think twice.

Game changed!

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#93

Post by namityadav » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

This is very aggressive pricing from Google. With Microsoft offering 25GB for free (although for a limited time, and only to its existing users), and Google offering 100GB for $5/mo, the online storage space is finally heating up. The tight integration with Google Docs, and (in case of Microsoft) Office Web Apps, and valuable features like OCR and Image recognition means that these companies are now offering services on top of their online storage that Dropbox doesn't.

Dropbox definitely has a head-start today, but Google and Microsoft have the scale to offer better prices, existing platforms to tightly integrate their solutions with (Android and Windows), and the brand-power to pull people away from Dropbox. This may be the first time Dropbox has some real competition.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#94

Post by rsbrown » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

As a satisfied (and paying) Dropbox user, Google is pushing all the right buttons for me with this:

- More storage space, lower price

- Ecosystem for 3rd-party apps

- Integration with existing Google services and two-factor authentication

I like Dropbox and would love to keep using them, but they will need to respond strongly and quickly if they want to keep my business.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#95

Post by AdrianRossouw » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #42

The clock is ticking on Dropbox to lower their price. I'm paying $99/year for 50GB, but I'd be getting 100GB for $60/year over at Google. I'm already banging up against my 50GB limit - I may actually jump over to Google before my subscription is up just because the prices are so good.

i'm the opposite.

i just need another 500mb, and i just dont need to pay another $10/m for a bunch of disk space i won't use. everyone i know already has dropbox too, so referrals are out.

I hope the pricing of dropbox lowers soon too.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#96

Post by Smerity » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #68

I recently upgraded to Dropbox @ $199/yr for 100gb to archive our digital photos. Yesterday MSFT skydrive offered 100gb for $50/yr. Today GOOG offers 400GB for $100/yr or 1TB for $256/yr. As a consumer with "offsite backup" in mind, there doesn't seem to be an inherently high switching cost to move services away from DropBox. As a result I think that they're going to need to reassess pricing strategy within the year.…

I saw the same pricing as you did but it _just_ changed as I refreshed the page a second time.

1 TB now costs $49.99 per month, or $600/year. This is a substantial jump from $256/year and means it's no longer an attractive proposition...

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#97

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#98

Post by brlewis » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:08 PM UTC

lomegor wrote: post #50

brlewis wrote: post #44

"Drive is also an open platform" Working with select third-party developers does not make something an open platform. A documented API makes something an open platform. Even a command-line client for a popular web-server operating system makes something an open platform. Google Drive is not an open platform yet.

I'm not sure if this helps https://developers.google.com/drive/ but as taken from another comment, it seems there is an API (or SDK or whatever).

That's an android app API. See andrenotgiant's comment (sibling to yours) that links to a REST API. What I have in mind is letting people export photos into a folder to populate a photojournal, as I'm already doing with Dropbox.

[EDIT] Looking deeper I see they're the same API. [/EDIT]

It's a good thing I read HN. From the Google announcement alone I would not be aware of either API.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#99

Post by atdt » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:08 PM UTC

This seems buggy. I created an archive subfolder and moved all my old Google docs there. This change (which presumably touches metadata only) took minutes to sync (on a fast connection) and failed on one file with this mysterious error: "Upload Error - An unknown issue has occurred."

Also: no option to disable the dock icon or turn off the hypnotic animation while files are syncing. Ugh.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#100

Post by edw519 » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 5:08 PM UTC

What might go wrong? (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.) Google might finally unleash GDrive and steal a lot of Dropbox's thunder (especially if this takes place before launch.)...

From Dropbox's 2007 YC Application, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html

I love reading old YC applications. I wonder if someday, they'll become the 21st century version of Harvard Business Review case studies.