5 ms·

How Dropbox Sources, Scales and Ships Its Best Product Ideas

39 points by anant90 11y ago

j_s 11y ago
'Dropbox for Business' multiple accounts shipped with a pretty major edge case: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4962975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4962975
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Wow. That's crazy. Strange thing was reading the staff comments that didn't justify why sharing one folder and deleting that share should delete everything else. I haven't used Dropbox in a while but I know most of these services can do things on a per folder basis. Why they'd make this design decision versus one with limited damage is beyond me. Even if it makes sense somehow, both accounts should have to agree to delete everything if both will be effected.
- ljk 11y ago
  very interesting case of "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"
rogerbinns 11y ago
'Dropbox for Business' multiple accounts have a dismal implementation. What they did is let one personal account pseudo-merge into a business account, so now both are sort of in the same place, no matter how unrelated. Oh and tough luck if you have multiple accounts, multiple businesses, try to disentangle the accounts, use mobile devices and a whole host of other issues. What they should have done is just taken the google approach. You can login one or more times concurrently, and can choose your current user view by switching users in a dropdown somewhere. There was some drivel about how non-paying customers could then combine multiple non-paying accounts, but making your service hostile for the paying customers is stupid, and the simple solution is to allow at most one unpaid account. Dropbox is very lucky that their competition sucks, and that they support Linux. (While you may not need Linux support, others you work/play with may, amplifying the Linux support needs ignored by pretty much every other vendor.) I wish services would just adopt the google multi-account approach. I'm looking at you Trello.
- iamleppert 11y ago
  Totally agree. Why couldn't they have done something like Github? And what's up with it taking 25 engineers working full time...really?? To implement multiple accounts/group functionality?
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I like how they run product development in the company similar to doing startups in parallel. It's an interesting and intuitive approach. The Hack Week is a nice improvement on it. I'd like to see an organization compare this to Google's time division approach to see which performs better over time in terms of innovation.
inthewoods 11y ago
I love Dropbox, but from my admittedly limited viewpoint I don't see them shipping many product ideas. Maybe they've got a huge list, or it's a ton of ideas that work behind the scenes?
- i386 11y ago
  Steve Jobs was right: the company is a feature. I feel they've rested on their laurels for far too long while players like Box have beat them in the enterprise and Apple are shipping a free version of their consumer product on every Mac and iOS device. They are a cornered company and have have little to differentiate at the top or bottom of the market.
  - srtjstjsj 11y ago
    > Apple are shipping a free version of their consumer product on every Mac and iOS device. Dropbox has always been for users who aren't locked into exactly one platform.
pbreit 11y ago
My probably wrong impression of Dropbox is that it's virtually unchanged since Day 1. I certainly cannot tell much difference except the the Mac menu is now less useful.

39 points by anant90 11y ago

j_s 11y ago

'Dropbox for Business' multiple accounts shipped with a pretty major edge case: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4962975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4962975

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Wow. That's crazy. Strange thing was reading the staff comments that didn't justify why sharing one folder and deleting that share should delete everything else. I haven't used Dropbox in a while but I know most of these services can do things on a per folder basis. Why they'd make this design decision versus one with limited damage is beyond me. Even if it makes sense somehow, both accounts should have to agree to delete everything if both will be effected.
ljk 11y ago
very interesting case of "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"

rogerbinns 11y ago

'Dropbox for Business' multiple accounts have a dismal implementation. What they did is let one personal account pseudo-merge into a business account, so now both are sort of in the same place, no matter how unrelated. Oh and tough luck if you have multiple accounts, multiple businesses, try to disentangle the accounts, use mobile devices and a whole host of other issues. What they should have done is just taken the google approach. You can login one or more times concurrently, and can choose your current user view by switching users in a dropdown somewhere. There was some drivel about how non-paying customers could then combine multiple non-paying accounts, but making your service hostile for the paying customers is stupid, and the simple solution is to allow at most one unpaid account. Dropbox is very lucky that their competition sucks, and that they support Linux. (While you may not need Linux support, others you work/play with may, amplifying the Linux support needs ignored by pretty much every other vendor.) I wish services would just adopt the google multi-account approach. I'm looking at you Trello.

iamleppert 11y ago
Totally agree. Why couldn't they have done something like Github? And what's up with it taking 25 engineers working full time...really?? To implement multiple accounts/group functionality?

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I like how they run product development in the company similar to doing startups in parallel. It's an interesting and intuitive approach. The Hack Week is a nice improvement on it. I'd like to see an organization compare this to Google's time division approach to see which performs better over time in terms of innovation.

inthewoods 11y ago

I love Dropbox, but from my admittedly limited viewpoint I don't see them shipping many product ideas. Maybe they've got a huge list, or it's a ton of ideas that work behind the scenes?

i386 11y ago
Steve Jobs was right: the company is a feature. I feel they've rested on their laurels for far too long while players like Box have beat them in the enterprise and Apple are shipping a free version of their consumer product on every Mac and iOS device. They are a cornered company and have have little to differentiate at the top or bottom of the market.
- srtjstjsj 11y ago
  > Apple are shipping a free version of their consumer product on every Mac and iOS device. Dropbox has always been for users who aren't locked into exactly one platform.

pbreit 11y ago

My probably wrong impression of Dropbox is that it's virtually unchanged since Day 1. I certainly cannot tell much difference except the the Mac menu is now less useful.