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My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

by jswrenn 10y ago

valarauca1 10y ago
This is great. The HN crowd amusingly isn't the audience most startups should cater to.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  At the risk of being off-topic, I hate the fact that many modern entrepreneurs use the hilarious-in-hindsight comments on Dropbox's Show HN as an example on why startups should ignore criticism to be successful. Dropbox is the exception, not the rule. (Additionally, the demographics of HN today in 2016 are much, much different and more technically diverse than in 2007, so the irony would be less likely to be repeated)
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    I of course agree that you shouldn't ignore criticism. But that's not what quoting that comment is about. That one particular dropbox comment exemplifies why a large portion of the tech crowd is generally clueless about UX, and about the impact of UX on a product. It exemplifies why Linux is having such a hard time being relevant on the desktop. Why a technically-superior product will not necessarily win over a well-marketed one. Why ideas and implementations don't matter, execution is key. It's beautiful and enraging at the same time.
  - nikatwork 10y ago
    A vocal percentage of the HN crowd assumes you are working on a personal machine with full admin rights, not behind any firewall, and that you have the expertise, spare time and patience to setup and maintain a system. Ironically these criticisms are largely thrown at consumer apps, while server apps (eg third party monitoring and reporting) rarely cop it at the same level. A recent example that comes to mind - I'm not affiliated and tbf plenty of comments point out valid use cases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10289673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10289673
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - rudedogg 10y ago
    Not sure how it was received, but I could imagine Slack being mocked in a similar way by tech people for basically just being an IRC client.
SteveNuts 10y ago
"you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software." Yeah... that would have been a lot easier than Dropbox!
- danso 10y ago
  That's funny...I always remember the response to the Dropbox post as "Why don't you just use rsync?". Which is something I actually do for things I don't want to put on Dropbox. Not sure how that FTP solution is manageable, though.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    It's navigable on the web. Most browsers can navigate through an FTP server.
    - danso 10y ago
      Ah, I guess I see Dropbox purely as a sync between my multiple computers. I almost never use the web interface. IIRC, Dropbox was announced mostly as a synced file server. It didn't have all of the features that I take for granted now, such as third-party interoperability and public-file sharing.
- mhurron 10y ago
  No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. First thing I thought of.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bicknergseng 10y ago
I'm wondering if there's any correlation between idea "quality" and how far down the first supportive comment is or the ratio of positive to negative comments in general.
akerro 10y ago
Here's updated link http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/

My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

by jswrenn 10y ago

My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

valarauca1 10y ago

This is great. The HN crowd amusingly isn't the audience most startups should cater to.

minimaxir 10y ago
At the risk of being off-topic, I hate the fact that many modern entrepreneurs use the hilarious-in-hindsight comments on Dropbox's Show HN as an example on why startups should ignore criticism to be successful. Dropbox is the exception, not the rule. (Additionally, the demographics of HN today in 2016 are much, much different and more technically diverse than in 2007, so the irony would be less likely to be repeated)
- scrollaway 10y ago
  I of course agree that you shouldn't ignore criticism. But that's not what quoting that comment is about. That one particular dropbox comment exemplifies why a large portion of the tech crowd is generally clueless about UX, and about the impact of UX on a product. It exemplifies why Linux is having such a hard time being relevant on the desktop. Why a technically-superior product will not necessarily win over a well-marketed one. Why ideas and implementations don't matter, execution is key. It's beautiful and enraging at the same time.
- nikatwork 10y ago
  A vocal percentage of the HN crowd assumes you are working on a personal machine with full admin rights, not behind any firewall, and that you have the expertise, spare time and patience to setup and maintain a system. Ironically these criticisms are largely thrown at consumer apps, while server apps (eg third party monitoring and reporting) rarely cop it at the same level. A recent example that comes to mind - I'm not affiliated and tbf plenty of comments point out valid use cases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10289673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10289673
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rudedogg 10y ago
  Not sure how it was received, but I could imagine Slack being mocked in a similar way by tech people for basically just being an IRC client.

SteveNuts 10y ago

"you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software." Yeah... that would have been a lot easier than Dropbox!

danso 10y ago
That's funny...I always remember the response to the Dropbox post as "Why don't you just use rsync?". Which is something I actually do for things I don't want to put on Dropbox. Not sure how that FTP solution is manageable, though.
- gravypod 10y ago
  It's navigable on the web. Most browsers can navigate through an FTP server.
  - danso 10y ago
    Ah, I guess I see Dropbox purely as a sync between my multiple computers. I almost never use the web interface. IIRC, Dropbox was announced mostly as a synced file server. It didn't have all of the features that I take for granted now, such as third-party interoperability and public-file sharing.
mhurron 10y ago
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. First thing I thought of.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

bicknergseng 10y ago

I'm wondering if there's any correlation between idea "quality" and how far down the first supportive comment is or the ratio of positive to negative comments in general.

akerro 10y ago

Here's updated link http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/