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Is there a culture at Dropbox that just encourages these kind of dark patterns? I originally started using the service out of respect for Guido's work, but it s

Is there a culture at Dropbox that just encourages these kind of dark patterns? I originally started using the service out of respect for Guido's work, but it seems obvious at this point that Dropbox has little respect for users' security or privacy and will push through this kind of nonsense, hoping that their less-knowledgeable user base won't catch onto the implications.

deong 10y ago
Well, as far as I'm aware, there have been no actual implications. I think it's a perfectly reasonable summary to say that Dropbox does a bunch of weird shit to enable features customers want that can't realistically be delivered any other way, and so far there have been no drawbacks to the approach in practice. I get the argument from the other side as well, but if you're Dropbox, you just want to make the best file-syncing application you can make, and any other choice they could have made in these situations would be worse in lots of ways. We can quibble over which set of compromises is the right set, but I doubt you'll find a single set of uniformly preferred options. To be sure, there are probably some low cost wins they could make -- making the signing status of everything more obvious, etc., but I'm not sure what your desired outcome here really is. I guess I mostly just find it annoying that people seem to think anything other than presenting my 67 year old mother with a dialog of full disclosure about kernel extensions is somehow the nefarious work of a shady company rather than a conscious design arrived at through a reasonable comparison of the options.
- cat199 10y ago
  Because there is no middle ground here, like, say, a sensibly labeled checkbox in the preferences, which defaults to on? As for implications: We're here talking about it. That is an implication. This is not the first time either. As for uniformly preferred: not futzing around with system level stuff without a preference or notification tends to be pretty much universal.
  - geofft 10y ago
    What is a "sensibly labeled checkbox"? [x] Enable Smart Sync [x] Install Dropbox drivers required for Smart Sync What happens if I uncheck the second checkbox but not the first? Does Smart Sync just sit there and look sad? Maybe just a note under the Smart Sync thing saying "Smart Sync drivers are installed. Disable Smart Sync to remove"? Will that actually make anyone happier? Also—Dropbox is a filesystem. (Logically, the entire product is a filesystem; pedantically, traditional Dropbox might not be but Smart Sync definitely fits the definition of a network filesystem.) Traditionally on UNIX, if you're installing a third-party filesystem like AFS or Lustre or ZFS or whatever else, you're installing drivers. The fact that installing a filesystem installs both userspace software and drivers doesn't feel weird to me at all.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      Traditional UNIX filesystems didn't backdoor the accessibility panel for persistence.
      - deong 10y ago
        Well, where the analogy falls down a bit is that traditional UNIX filesystems have traditionally been installed and maintained by UNIX systems administrators. My point wasn't to blindly defend everything Dropbox has done. I'm sure they've made mistakes, both in design and implementation. My point was that things like their hack of the accessibility panel are, in my opinion, overblown by the average technical reader. I think bothering the user with an accessibility panel is tedious "Charlie work" that I'd prefer be avoided. I understand why it works the way it does, and I understand the theoretical risk the OS is trying to mitigate. But I'm already trusting Dropbox with my data. It's silly for the OS to treat them like some unknown piece of malware, it's just that the OS isn't a generally intelligent agent able to make accurate determinations of that sort. I get all that. It doesn't change the fact that I as the user of my computer just want Dropbox to do whatever it needs to do to work. I'm capable of doing the accessibility dance that most applications require, but not everyone is, and I think it's a reasonable position for Dropbox to take that if users are signing up and downloading our app, then implicitly they trust us to check the accessibility box. Is that an objectively acceptable argument? No, but all I'm arguing is that it's reasonable. It doesn't imply maliciousness that that's the argument that won the day inside Dropbox.
coldtea 10y ago
>I originally started using the service out of respect for Guido's work Guido has nothing to do with Dropbox, apart from being an employee at the company. He is neither the one who created the platform, nor is he responsible for how it operates. It would be like using Gmail because you respect Brian Kernighan.
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  And what would be the issue with factoring that into your choice? At the time I was choosing between these kinds of services, Dropbox and its competitors were all pretty comparable. I have great respect for the Python community and it's values, so when I learned that Guido was working there and that they were giving him time to work on Python, I thought it indicated a positive company culture. Why not go with Dropbox, all else being equal. Then they pulled this kind of BS repeatedly and appointed Rice to the board. I guess lesson learned about thinking good people will work at places that align with their values.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >And what would be the issue with factoring that into your choice? Obviously that it would be an irrelevant criterion? Besides you answer that yourself: "I guess lesson learned about thinking good people will work at places that align with their values."
    - alphonsegaston 10y ago
      I don't think that hoping for quality work and a promotion of good values from someone with a track record on those issues is an irrelevant criterion. I may end up being repeatedly disappointed, but I'd rather weigh it than not.

deong 10y ago

Well, as far as I'm aware, there have been no actual implications. I think it's a perfectly reasonable summary to say that Dropbox does a bunch of weird shit to enable features customers want that can't realistically be delivered any other way, and so far there have been no drawbacks to the approach in practice. I get the argument from the other side as well, but if you're Dropbox, you just want to make the best file-syncing application you can make, and any other choice they could have made in these situations would be worse in lots of ways. We can quibble over which set of compromises is the right set, but I doubt you'll find a single set of uniformly preferred options. To be sure, there are probably some low cost wins they could make -- making the signing status of everything more obvious, etc., but I'm not sure what your desired outcome here really is. I guess I mostly just find it annoying that people seem to think anything other than presenting my 67 year old mother with a dialog of full disclosure about kernel extensions is somehow the nefarious work of a shady company rather than a conscious design arrived at through a reasonable comparison of the options.

cat199 10y ago
Because there is no middle ground here, like, say, a sensibly labeled checkbox in the preferences, which defaults to on? As for implications: We're here talking about it. That is an implication. This is not the first time either. As for uniformly preferred: not futzing around with system level stuff without a preference or notification tends to be pretty much universal.
- geofft 10y ago
  What is a "sensibly labeled checkbox"? [x] Enable Smart Sync [x] Install Dropbox drivers required for Smart Sync What happens if I uncheck the second checkbox but not the first? Does Smart Sync just sit there and look sad? Maybe just a note under the Smart Sync thing saying "Smart Sync drivers are installed. Disable Smart Sync to remove"? Will that actually make anyone happier? Also—Dropbox is a filesystem. (Logically, the entire product is a filesystem; pedantically, traditional Dropbox might not be but Smart Sync definitely fits the definition of a network filesystem.) Traditionally on UNIX, if you're installing a third-party filesystem like AFS or Lustre or ZFS or whatever else, you're installing drivers. The fact that installing a filesystem installs both userspace software and drivers doesn't feel weird to me at all.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Traditional UNIX filesystems didn't backdoor the accessibility panel for persistence.
    - deong 10y ago
      Well, where the analogy falls down a bit is that traditional UNIX filesystems have traditionally been installed and maintained by UNIX systems administrators. My point wasn't to blindly defend everything Dropbox has done. I'm sure they've made mistakes, both in design and implementation. My point was that things like their hack of the accessibility panel are, in my opinion, overblown by the average technical reader. I think bothering the user with an accessibility panel is tedious "Charlie work" that I'd prefer be avoided. I understand why it works the way it does, and I understand the theoretical risk the OS is trying to mitigate. But I'm already trusting Dropbox with my data. It's silly for the OS to treat them like some unknown piece of malware, it's just that the OS isn't a generally intelligent agent able to make accurate determinations of that sort. I get all that. It doesn't change the fact that I as the user of my computer just want Dropbox to do whatever it needs to do to work. I'm capable of doing the accessibility dance that most applications require, but not everyone is, and I think it's a reasonable position for Dropbox to take that if users are signing up and downloading our app, then implicitly they trust us to check the accessibility box. Is that an objectively acceptable argument? No, but all I'm arguing is that it's reasonable. It doesn't imply maliciousness that that's the argument that won the day inside Dropbox.

coldtea 10y ago

>I originally started using the service out of respect for Guido's work Guido has nothing to do with Dropbox, apart from being an employee at the company. He is neither the one who created the platform, nor is he responsible for how it operates. It would be like using Gmail because you respect Brian Kernighan.

alphonsegaston 10y ago
And what would be the issue with factoring that into your choice? At the time I was choosing between these kinds of services, Dropbox and its competitors were all pretty comparable. I have great respect for the Python community and it's values, so when I learned that Guido was working there and that they were giving him time to work on Python, I thought it indicated a positive company culture. Why not go with Dropbox, all else being equal. Then they pulled this kind of BS repeatedly and appointed Rice to the board. I guess lesson learned about thinking good people will work at places that align with their values.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >And what would be the issue with factoring that into your choice? Obviously that it would be an irrelevant criterion? Besides you answer that yourself: "I guess lesson learned about thinking good people will work at places that align with their values."
  - alphonsegaston 10y ago
    I don't think that hoping for quality work and a promotion of good values from someone with a track record on those issues is an irrelevant criterion. I may end up being repeatedly disappointed, but I'd rather weigh it than not.