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I recently did a purge of nearly all my software subscriptions and Dropbox was among the few that survived. Say what you want about storage being a commodity, I

I recently did a purge of nearly all my software subscriptions and Dropbox was among the few that survived. Say what you want about storage being a commodity, I think they have built an outstanding service that continues to deliver a huge value to their users. I hope the employees see a nice windfall.

JohnStudio 9y ago
Jokingly, I saw this and thought to myself - ok, who's the backroom Chinese hacker planting the HN post. :) Then I realized your karma .. I don't disagree with you, but I'm always weary of glowing compliments to software platforms.
bsharitt 9y ago
There are plenty of options out there for file storage services with decent phone client and being able to easily share file with non-techie friends and family. There are also plenty of file storage services that have clients for the desktop and command line Linux. But Drop box is the only one I've found that works across both of those very well with first party clients. After all that, I'm not a paying Dropbox customer though. Unfortunately their pricing left me behind when it went to $10 a month for 1TB and nothing between that and free. So instead of I deal with the wonkiness of Google Drive when I need to on Linux and it works well enough everywhere else and the $2 a moth for 100GB is plenty.
- Cerium 9y ago
  Same boat, If they had a $5 tier - even for only 20gb I would be a paying customer. As is I keep using my free plan.
  - math0ne 9y ago
    You can get up to 20gb for free using a couple tricks.
    - sleepychu 9y ago
      I think your parent's point is that they'd like to be a paying customer but the cheapest tier is to dear to justify.
- stevenhuang 9y ago
  There's an open source Google Drive cli for Linux too, works super well: https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive
  - weavie 9y ago
    This also works on FreeBSD. I haven't found any DropBox equivalent for BSD.
- geomark 9y ago
  What do you think of Mega? [1]. I switched from Dropbox to Mega because of that same pricing issue. I'm not a power user but it certainly works well for syncing files and photos across by Linux and Android devices. [1] https://mega.nz/ https://mega.nz/
  - coolspot 9y ago
    Mega is awesome and also end-to-end encrypted.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Mega is the second iteration of megaupload, funded by piracy and shut down by the FBI some years ago. The founder is shady and has under many ongoing trials and extraditions claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom Seriously. Don't hold your personal files on mega. They can be shut down any minute and delete all your data. That's what happened last time. Dropbox is a respectable business. It's not comparable.
      - geomark 9y ago
        I'm more inclined to go with Mega because of Kim Dotcom than I am to use Dropbox with Condoleezza Rice on its board.
      - coolspot 9y ago
        AFAIK mega.nz was founded by Kim, but later bought out by investors. It is fully laws and DMCA compliant. It is not about piracy anymore.
        user5994461 9y ago
        It's as compliant as megaupload was. Don't get it wrong, the vast majority of the traffic is piracy.
      - therealdrag0 9y ago
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I'd also love to have a slightly lower tier than 1TB, maybe just 20GB or 50GB.
askafriend 9y ago
The cost of switching is very high partly because of extremely slow upload speeds. If we had insanely fast upload speeds available widely, the competitive landscape of storage and sync might look different.
joering2 9y ago
I think if Google would put serious thought into Drive (desktop client, like Drop) and give 10 years of unlimited but reasonable (you know - don't dump all your DVDs and BluRays into cloud just because you can), I imagine plenty of people moving on. Its just Google Drive Sux... at the moment :)
- killerdhmo 9y ago
  Hey friend, they have a desktop client! https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16267624/google-drive-desktop-app-shutdown https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16267624/google-drive-desk... (ignore the shutdown part, later in the article it lists the two options: Google Backup & Sync; Google Drive File Stream
Gatsky 9y ago
Agree. It's always worked flawlessly for me. From another perspective, it's a little concerning how big a company it takes to deliver a useful and consistent service like this.
- ryanSrich 9y ago
  You must not be an iPhone user. The fact that photo backups pause every 30 seconds or so is one of the most incredibly annoying software issues I've ever had to deal with. Switching over to iCloud photo backup didn't come soon enough.
  - Gatsky 9y ago
    Works fine for me, however I don't take a great many photos.
  - nsm 9y ago
    Do you mean background uploads? I believe that is because the iOS APIs don't allow apps to run in the background keep uploading data. I've never had uploads failed while the app was in the foreground. I agree this is inconvenient, but it isn't the app developer's fault.
srathi 9y ago
If you don't mind me asking, which other services did survive? I'm also looking at purging my list.

JohnStudio 9y ago

Jokingly, I saw this and thought to myself - ok, who's the backroom Chinese hacker planting the HN post. :) Then I realized your karma .. I don't disagree with you, but I'm always weary of glowing compliments to software platforms.

bsharitt 9y ago

There are plenty of options out there for file storage services with decent phone client and being able to easily share file with non-techie friends and family. There are also plenty of file storage services that have clients for the desktop and command line Linux. But Drop box is the only one I've found that works across both of those very well with first party clients. After all that, I'm not a paying Dropbox customer though. Unfortunately their pricing left me behind when it went to $10 a month for 1TB and nothing between that and free. So instead of I deal with the wonkiness of Google Drive when I need to on Linux and it works well enough everywhere else and the $2 a moth for 100GB is plenty.

Cerium 9y ago
Same boat, If they had a $5 tier - even for only 20gb I would be a paying customer. As is I keep using my free plan.
- math0ne 9y ago
  You can get up to 20gb for free using a couple tricks.
  - sleepychu 9y ago
    I think your parent's point is that they'd like to be a paying customer but the cheapest tier is to dear to justify.
stevenhuang 9y ago
There's an open source Google Drive cli for Linux too, works super well: https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive
- weavie 9y ago
  This also works on FreeBSD. I haven't found any DropBox equivalent for BSD.
geomark 9y ago
What do you think of Mega? [1]. I switched from Dropbox to Mega because of that same pricing issue. I'm not a power user but it certainly works well for syncing files and photos across by Linux and Android devices. [1] https://mega.nz/ https://mega.nz/
- coolspot 9y ago
  Mega is awesome and also end-to-end encrypted.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Mega is the second iteration of megaupload, funded by piracy and shut down by the FBI some years ago. The founder is shady and has under many ongoing trials and extraditions claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom Seriously. Don't hold your personal files on mega. They can be shut down any minute and delete all your data. That's what happened last time. Dropbox is a respectable business. It's not comparable.
    - geomark 9y ago
      I'm more inclined to go with Mega because of Kim Dotcom than I am to use Dropbox with Condoleezza Rice on its board.
    - coolspot 9y ago
      AFAIK mega.nz was founded by Kim, but later bought out by investors. It is fully laws and DMCA compliant. It is not about piracy anymore.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        It's as compliant as megaupload was. Don't get it wrong, the vast majority of the traffic is piracy.
    - therealdrag0 9y ago
KozmoNau7 9y ago
I'd also love to have a slightly lower tier than 1TB, maybe just 20GB or 50GB.

askafriend 9y ago

The cost of switching is very high partly because of extremely slow upload speeds. If we had insanely fast upload speeds available widely, the competitive landscape of storage and sync might look different.

joering2 9y ago

I think if Google would put serious thought into Drive (desktop client, like Drop) and give 10 years of unlimited but reasonable (you know - don't dump all your DVDs and BluRays into cloud just because you can), I imagine plenty of people moving on. Its just Google Drive Sux... at the moment :)

killerdhmo 9y ago
Hey friend, they have a desktop client! https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16267624/google-drive-desktop-app-shutdown https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16267624/google-drive-desk... (ignore the shutdown part, later in the article it lists the two options: Google Backup & Sync; Google Drive File Stream

Gatsky 9y ago

Agree. It's always worked flawlessly for me. From another perspective, it's a little concerning how big a company it takes to deliver a useful and consistent service like this.

ryanSrich 9y ago
You must not be an iPhone user. The fact that photo backups pause every 30 seconds or so is one of the most incredibly annoying software issues I've ever had to deal with. Switching over to iCloud photo backup didn't come soon enough.
- Gatsky 9y ago
  Works fine for me, however I don't take a great many photos.
- nsm 9y ago
  Do you mean background uploads? I believe that is because the iOS APIs don't allow apps to run in the background keep uploading data. I've never had uploads failed while the app was in the foreground. I agree this is inconvenient, but it isn't the app developer's fault.

srathi 9y ago

If you don't mind me asking, which other services did survive? I'm also looking at purging my list.