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Legitimate question: how is Dropbox not effectively dead in the water? Between GDrive use driven by close integration with Gmail/GSuite and iCloud having major

by sp527 9y ago

Legitimate question: how is Dropbox not effectively dead in the water? Between GDrive use driven by close integration with Gmail/GSuite and iCloud having major user capture, I don't understand where Dropbox is necessary or wanted anymore. If someone sent me a link to a Dropbox file instead of uploading to GDrive, I would find that weird and might even call them out on it. This applies to most people I know across a variety of demographics. Is there some secret massive trove of Dropbox users I'm simply not aware of? Speculation: momentum of people who were early on the cloud adoption curve who are implicitly/behaviorally entrenched by accrued data volume. That doesn't sound to me like the foundation of a solid business with growth potential (see: IBM). Those kinds of users are ultimately going to be fairly price sensitive given the substitutability of the product and therefore not marginally monetizable. They may already also perceive themselves as paying an 'inconvenience penalty' vs GDrive/iCloud. Honestly, this looks like exactly what it might very well be: rich Silicon Valley investors dump a squeezed, has-been company into the frothy public market to tap into 'dumb' liquidity. I should clarify I don't have anything against Dropbox itself. I do have a problem with pushing a dud into the public market at an irresponsible valuation to effectively defraud uninformed people and desperate institutional investors with low accountability who are facing a drought of good return opportunities (e.g. mutual fund and pension fund managers). You can hem and haw around it all you want ("oh they'll build new features", etc), but the growth expectation baked into their valuation is more or less predicated on extrapolating a pattern of success they are unlikely to be able to replicate. Cloud storage is commoditized and they're competing against monster platforms that are better positioned than them to capture new business and siphon their existing users (applies even in enterprise, arguably they lose against Box but certainly against Microsoft and now even Google). So they're being paid to try to tap into new verticals as very late contenders (e.g. Dropbox Paper)? There's no there there. It's wrong. In my opinion, it's fraud and only slightly less awful than the behavior surrounding the dotcom bust.

draw_down 9y ago
Google Drive is simply a terrible product compared to Dropbox. Everyone always says it’s just a feature (because Steve Jobs said that) but it’s a feature I’ve never seen anyone else get right.
drwl 9y ago
I imagine this is availability heuristic in action. It's about 11 million paying customers according to public data
- ttul 9y ago
  I have been using Dropbox since the service started. In my business, we use it every day. Although Google and Microsoft and Apple now offer comparable services, I have to say Dropbox still has the best user experience. So long as they keep on top of that, they will have me as a customer for many years to come.
ggg9990 9y ago
Answer: Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon all use their cheap file hosting offering to push whatever other bullshit they are selling today. Dropbox doesn’t and thus works as well in every situation as it does with every other.
jonbarker 9y ago
Cloud storage is 'kind of' commoditized. Like the price per gig for buckets or blobs is pretty similar. But it's hard for most folks to collaborate on with buckets or blobs. They're in the collaboration market, which is bigger than the storage market.
- untangle 9y ago
  > They're in the collaboration market, which is bigger than the storage market. They're in the "file sync" market. They want to be in the collaboration market. Hence the John Lennon-esque post.
Gatsky 9y ago
> Is there some secret massive trove of Dropbox users I'm simply not aware of? I think the fairly obvious answer to this is "Yes". Or you can continue to believe your conspiracy theory.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> how is Dropbox not effectively dead in the water? Between GDrive use driven by close integration with Gmail/GSuite and iCloud having major user capture, I don't understand where Dropbox is necessary or wanted anymore. - It came first. - It does one thing and does it well. - It does it across all platforms. - It isn't tied to other product offering. That's a feature, not a bug. It means Dropbox isn't pushing other bullshit on you, unlike GSuite/Office356, where file syncing is a second-class citizen meant to encourage you to use relevant company's cloud office suite. - Therefore, it's free to offer integrations between usually competing companies. It integrates with GMail just as well as it does with regular Word documents. But integrations are still a side story, they don't interfere with the core competency - being a folder that syncs. Seriously, I'm not sure why would people use OneDrive or Google Drive, when there's Dropbox.
- berbec 9y ago
  I use Dropbox and gsuite drive. Dropbox is for easy to access file sync and gsuite is for backing up 30TB. All hail rclone.org
balladeer 9y ago
On my MacBook Dropbox sits in a corner on my top bar and goes largely unnoticed but when Google Drive or one of their many file sync apps (just like messaging they have a lot on this front too) runs and is indexing or backing up files it almost always renders my laptop unusable. Maybe that's just me but at least I don't use Google Drive for that reason. Also, I use Google for some purposes but not for file sync. I don't want all my eggs in one basket.
Kagerjay 9y ago
Dropbox has the most number support for integrations Gdrive has some really backwards folder integration and Ive been told inferior API compared to dropbox from developers who have used it Dropbox handles complex folder structures easily compared to gdrive and other services Dropbox came first as well Dropbox gives you exactly what you put into it. Gdrive and onedrive this is not the case. More so onedrive if anything it feels close to PUPware since it forces itself in the OS. Gdrive integrates automatically with google services, giving you less refined control over folder structures. Theres many cloud software solutions out there but have you tried putting them under stress tests? They have always given me problems (e.g. high CPU usage , long sync times, no revision history, lack of integration to common applications such as wordpress, forced integrations on install, poor UX UI upfront on website, poor mobile integration, lack of easy sharing and collab). I think users who consider cloud storage a commodity dont put high valuation on their data (e.g. users who think cloud software A is better than dropbox because its cheaper per GB storage). Its like going to the grocery store and buying the cheapest meat possible(ground beef), stating there all nutritionally similar, and missing the point on key differences on higher quality meat / taste.

by sp527 9y ago

draw_down 9y ago

Google Drive is simply a terrible product compared to Dropbox. Everyone always says it’s just a feature (because Steve Jobs said that) but it’s a feature I’ve never seen anyone else get right.

drwl 9y ago

I imagine this is availability heuristic in action. It's about 11 million paying customers according to public data

ttul 9y ago
I have been using Dropbox since the service started. In my business, we use it every day. Although Google and Microsoft and Apple now offer comparable services, I have to say Dropbox still has the best user experience. So long as they keep on top of that, they will have me as a customer for many years to come.

ggg9990 9y ago

Answer: Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon all use their cheap file hosting offering to push whatever other bullshit they are selling today. Dropbox doesn’t and thus works as well in every situation as it does with every other.

jonbarker 9y ago

Cloud storage is 'kind of' commoditized. Like the price per gig for buckets or blobs is pretty similar. But it's hard for most folks to collaborate on with buckets or blobs. They're in the collaboration market, which is bigger than the storage market.

untangle 9y ago
> They're in the collaboration market, which is bigger than the storage market. They're in the "file sync" market. They want to be in the collaboration market. Hence the John Lennon-esque post.

Gatsky 9y ago

> Is there some secret massive trove of Dropbox users I'm simply not aware of? I think the fairly obvious answer to this is "Yes". Or you can continue to believe your conspiracy theory.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> how is Dropbox not effectively dead in the water? Between GDrive use driven by close integration with Gmail/GSuite and iCloud having major user capture, I don't understand where Dropbox is necessary or wanted anymore. - It came first. - It does one thing and does it well. - It does it across all platforms. - It isn't tied to other product offering. That's a feature, not a bug. It means Dropbox isn't pushing other bullshit on you, unlike GSuite/Office356, where file syncing is a second-class citizen meant to encourage you to use relevant company's cloud office suite. - Therefore, it's free to offer integrations between usually competing companies. It integrates with GMail just as well as it does with regular Word documents. But integrations are still a side story, they don't interfere with the core competency - being a folder that syncs. Seriously, I'm not sure why would people use OneDrive or Google Drive, when there's Dropbox.

berbec 9y ago
I use Dropbox and gsuite drive. Dropbox is for easy to access file sync and gsuite is for backing up 30TB. All hail rclone.org

balladeer 9y ago

On my MacBook Dropbox sits in a corner on my top bar and goes largely unnoticed but when Google Drive or one of their many file sync apps (just like messaging they have a lot on this front too) runs and is indexing or backing up files it almost always renders my laptop unusable. Maybe that's just me but at least I don't use Google Drive for that reason. Also, I use Google for some purposes but not for file sync. I don't want all my eggs in one basket.

Kagerjay 9y ago

Dropbox has the most number support for integrations Gdrive has some really backwards folder integration and Ive been told inferior API compared to dropbox from developers who have used it Dropbox handles complex folder structures easily compared to gdrive and other services Dropbox came first as well Dropbox gives you exactly what you put into it. Gdrive and onedrive this is not the case. More so onedrive if anything it feels close to PUPware since it forces itself in the OS. Gdrive integrates automatically with google services, giving you less refined control over folder structures. Theres many cloud software solutions out there but have you tried putting them under stress tests? They have always given me problems (e.g. high CPU usage , long sync times, no revision history, lack of integration to common applications such as wordpress, forced integrations on install, poor UX UI upfront on website, poor mobile integration, lack of easy sharing and collab). I think users who consider cloud storage a commodity dont put high valuation on their data (e.g. users who think cloud software A is better than dropbox because its cheaper per GB storage). Its like going to the grocery store and buying the cheapest meat possible(ground beef), stating there all nutritionally similar, and missing the point on key differences on higher quality meat / taste.