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> Imagine if every minute at work were well spent—if we could focus and spend our time on the things that matter. Imagine how much more inspired we’d be. Imagin

> Imagine if every minute at work were well spent—if we could focus and spend our time on the things that matter. Imagine how much more inspired we’d be. Imagine how much better equipped we’d be to tackle humanity’s biggest challenges.This is the world we want to live in. We hope you’ll join us. Geez. You are a file hosting service. Stop pretending like you fixed the world's hunger or something.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mythas 9y ago
Wait are you telling me that every wasted minute you have at work isn’t due to file hosting issues? Personally I feel that if people designed digital spaces with as much care as they do physical spaces my work day would be rainbows and unicorns. /s
labster 9y ago
Too hyperbolic, for sure. But it's not worth nothing towards world hunger either. If we make a service that's cheaper, or overall wastes less of people's time than without it, then we make more wealth for the world. Yes it's unevenly distributed, but we hackers have to believe our work is worth something to the greater good, even if it's work for the megacorps.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Yes it's unevenly distributed, but we hackers have to believe our work is worth something to the greater good, even if it's work for the megacorps. Nah, you're just enriching someone else while building chat apps less capable than what existed 20 years ago while telling yourself you're doing good. That same effort would probably have a bigger impact somewhere else. You can tell yourself that but it's a justification for cash. "Wealth" and "progress" aren't inherently good. I know people who build stuff that people around the world use, they don't talk about how Einstein would've used their stuff or drop "enlightened" multiple times in posts. They shut their mouths and work. I know people who volunteer their time and money to make other people's lives better. None of them are billionaires. This puffy stuff associating yourself with some kind of moral and technological revolution is the worst part of tech and is the justification for the same kinds of abuses we've seen at Facebook this past week. It'd be better if people would just say "yeah, we wanted to be rich, we made a great app". The overwrought language is the stuff of parody and is tone deaf. Remember, this is a self-congratulatory post celebrating the founders becoming incredibly wealthy. This ethos of not only needing to be incredibly wealthy but also acting like you're great people because you are wealthy and needing other people to know that you're both wealthy and good is empty and vain and ultimately destructive because at the end of the day, there are lots of people who are just greedy. The cryptocurrency scams and Juicero people use the same language and are empowered by doing so. I've seen rooms of non-tech academics (whose work actually has changed the world) laugh about stuff like Juicero, the tech world often doesn't realize how they look to outsiders. It's surprising and not surprising that VC money has become so central to the hacker ethic, but it's distressing we can't just talk like people and be realistic about what we're achieving and enabling.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > Nah, you're just enriching someone else while building chat apps less capable than what existed 20 years ago while telling yourself you're doing good. That same effort would probably have a bigger impact somewhere else. You can tell yourself that but it's a justification for cash. "Wealth" and "progress" aren't inherently good. I tend to share similar sentiment in general, but this is a bit rich, talking about Dropbox, whose biggest feature is that it does one (useful) thing and does it well better than anyone else in 2012, and better than anyone else now. And they've made a huge impact worldwide - by covering something almost every computer user needs with a solution that's easy and reliable. I actually liked their letter, because it suggests they'd like to build something other than bullshit-but-shiny, acquihire-ready web apps. I applaud everyone who tries that way instead of the typical startup playbook.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      You're right, I've got no knock on Dropbox itself. It's a great product. They're getting what they deserve. In the context of this conversation, the poster was justifying working at megacorps and "having to believe" that they were making the world a better place. Some of those megacorps are not doing that, so forcing yourself into belief is the step towards delusion and unreality. I actually liked their letter, because it suggests they'd like to build something other than bullshit-but-shiny, acquihire-ready web apps. I applaud everyone who tries that way instead of the typical startup playbook. Is it too much to just underpromise and overdeliver? By couching their goals in those terms, Dropbox is not just trying to make a better product, they're seeking some kind of enlightenment, something which is utopian. It's unachievable. It's the same kind of speech you'd give to soldiers before they're going to go off to battle to die in some pointless war. I'd rather see people say specifically what they aim to achieve, be realistic about it, and then do it. The tech world likes to talk about itself too much (I know, that's rich), but the people I personally respect don't talk about how great they are, they're just great, and everyone knows it. Any man who must say, "I am the King", is no true king.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
hkmurakami 9y ago
They're setting out a grander vision for what they can be, what they need to be in the future in a world that demands constant growth. And in tech, if you don't keep moving forward, you get killed.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Nullabillity 9y ago
  Dropbox has been standing still/regressing slowly for about 9 years, and they seem to have been doing... fine.
  - JetSpiegel 9y ago
    The site turned from a sober recreation of Explorer to an unholy Material design JS mess. The features are all there (that I notice), but the performance has horrible. If Dropbox is about user friendliness, they can render the HTML on their server.
paxys 9y ago
Dropbox Paper is an absolute delight to use, and it shows that they definitely have greater ambitions in the entire productivity space.
fit2rule 9y ago
Their services should be built-in to the OS, and nobody should have to pay for it since we've all got computers perfectly capable of delivering the same quality of service. The hype has to be perpetuated, lest this fact become reality: the OS vendors can wipe this business out with a single update.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mythas 9y ago

Wait are you telling me that every wasted minute you have at work isn’t due to file hosting issues? Personally I feel that if people designed digital spaces with as much care as they do physical spaces my work day would be rainbows and unicorns. /s

labster 9y ago

Too hyperbolic, for sure. But it's not worth nothing towards world hunger either. If we make a service that's cheaper, or overall wastes less of people's time than without it, then we make more wealth for the world. Yes it's unevenly distributed, but we hackers have to believe our work is worth something to the greater good, even if it's work for the megacorps.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
Yes it's unevenly distributed, but we hackers have to believe our work is worth something to the greater good, even if it's work for the megacorps. Nah, you're just enriching someone else while building chat apps less capable than what existed 20 years ago while telling yourself you're doing good. That same effort would probably have a bigger impact somewhere else. You can tell yourself that but it's a justification for cash. "Wealth" and "progress" aren't inherently good. I know people who build stuff that people around the world use, they don't talk about how Einstein would've used their stuff or drop "enlightened" multiple times in posts. They shut their mouths and work. I know people who volunteer their time and money to make other people's lives better. None of them are billionaires. This puffy stuff associating yourself with some kind of moral and technological revolution is the worst part of tech and is the justification for the same kinds of abuses we've seen at Facebook this past week. It'd be better if people would just say "yeah, we wanted to be rich, we made a great app". The overwrought language is the stuff of parody and is tone deaf. Remember, this is a self-congratulatory post celebrating the founders becoming incredibly wealthy. This ethos of not only needing to be incredibly wealthy but also acting like you're great people because you are wealthy and needing other people to know that you're both wealthy and good is empty and vain and ultimately destructive because at the end of the day, there are lots of people who are just greedy. The cryptocurrency scams and Juicero people use the same language and are empowered by doing so. I've seen rooms of non-tech academics (whose work actually has changed the world) laugh about stuff like Juicero, the tech world often doesn't realize how they look to outsiders. It's surprising and not surprising that VC money has become so central to the hacker ethic, but it's distressing we can't just talk like people and be realistic about what we're achieving and enabling.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > Nah, you're just enriching someone else while building chat apps less capable than what existed 20 years ago while telling yourself you're doing good. That same effort would probably have a bigger impact somewhere else. You can tell yourself that but it's a justification for cash. "Wealth" and "progress" aren't inherently good. I tend to share similar sentiment in general, but this is a bit rich, talking about Dropbox, whose biggest feature is that it does one (useful) thing and does it well better than anyone else in 2012, and better than anyone else now. And they've made a huge impact worldwide - by covering something almost every computer user needs with a solution that's easy and reliable. I actually liked their letter, because it suggests they'd like to build something other than bullshit-but-shiny, acquihire-ready web apps. I applaud everyone who tries that way instead of the typical startup playbook.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    You're right, I've got no knock on Dropbox itself. It's a great product. They're getting what they deserve. In the context of this conversation, the poster was justifying working at megacorps and "having to believe" that they were making the world a better place. Some of those megacorps are not doing that, so forcing yourself into belief is the step towards delusion and unreality. I actually liked their letter, because it suggests they'd like to build something other than bullshit-but-shiny, acquihire-ready web apps. I applaud everyone who tries that way instead of the typical startup playbook. Is it too much to just underpromise and overdeliver? By couching their goals in those terms, Dropbox is not just trying to make a better product, they're seeking some kind of enlightenment, something which is utopian. It's unachievable. It's the same kind of speech you'd give to soldiers before they're going to go off to battle to die in some pointless war. I'd rather see people say specifically what they aim to achieve, be realistic about it, and then do it. The tech world likes to talk about itself too much (I know, that's rich), but the people I personally respect don't talk about how great they are, they're just great, and everyone knows it. Any man who must say, "I am the King", is no true king.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago

hkmurakami 9y ago

They're setting out a grander vision for what they can be, what they need to be in the future in a world that demands constant growth. And in tech, if you don't keep moving forward, you get killed.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Nullabillity 9y ago
Dropbox has been standing still/regressing slowly for about 9 years, and they seem to have been doing... fine.
- JetSpiegel 9y ago
  The site turned from a sober recreation of Explorer to an unholy Material design JS mess. The features are all there (that I notice), but the performance has horrible. If Dropbox is about user friendliness, they can render the HTML on their server.

paxys 9y ago

Dropbox Paper is an absolute delight to use, and it shows that they definitely have greater ambitions in the entire productivity space.

fit2rule 9y ago

Their services should be built-in to the OS, and nobody should have to pay for it since we've all got computers perfectly capable of delivering the same quality of service. The hype has to be perpetuated, lest this fact become reality: the OS vendors can wipe this business out with a single update.