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I left dropbox when they changed the full page upsell to "dropbox business" so that I couldn't easily figure out how to skip it and get on with my work. I had

I left dropbox when they changed the full page upsell to "dropbox business" so that I couldn't easily figure out how to skip it and get on with my work. I had a paid pro account at the time. I actually had a conversation with a product manager; I checked the yes you can contact me when I cancelled my account. They simply refused to admit that an upsell was a advertisement and that disrupting my workflow on my paid, professional account for an ad was wrong. The other interesting thing about that conversation, they could not understand how a sole proprietor would see no benefit from collaboration tools and kept making up bizarre scenarios where I could use them. I actually asked them if they were a product manager or a salesperson at one point. To Dropbox's credit, that product manager didn't try to retain me, they were genuinely trying to figure out why I had quit; they just couldn't grok the reason.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Nextgrid 6y ago
> they just couldn't grok the reason It's hard to make someone understand something when their salary (and entire reputation - given that increasing engagement/retention by X% is a big selling point on a resume) depends on not understanding it.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  Yes, but usually in that situation, the misunderstanding is intentional. This seemed a genuine inability to understand why I would quit over "a simple upsell". I am sure the inability to understand that it was a dark pattern to have no [X] or [SKIP] button was intentional :-)
  - mrjin 6y ago
    Well that was simply arrogance that can be see in almost every large organizations: they believe everyone would like their idea. The problem maybe most people do like their idea but there would be always someone does not.
  - durnygbur 6y ago
    > This seemed a genuine inability to understand why I would quit over "a simple upsell". Similar situation with major retail chains delivering brochures to a doorstep, or a bank clerk upselling bank credit and investment funds. It's not inability to understand, they are financially rewarded by doing this to you and their supervisors are malicious sociopaths. Their attitude is "why this person doesn't let me do my job".
- ryandrake 6y ago
  This is usually it! As developers, we have all worked on features where it was obvious that users wouldn’t want it, but the feature would juice some metric so it was prioritized. Some time between that initial meeting about how this will juice the metric and launch, Product convinced themselves that users would actually want it and are not prepared to accept the feature’s failure. Finally, when indeed users don’t want to use it, it would get pushed at them repeatedly, through sales and through dark UI patterns. Tale as old as time... This is what happens when you plan your product not from user need but from company need.
KingOfCoders 6y ago
Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. They are ads and I don't want ads. But they don't see it that way (don't get me started on the forced watching of texts on Blue Rays).
- matsemann 6y ago
  Yes wtf, I'm already paying and trying to watch a series I enjoy, stop pestering me. Just one of many dark patterns at Amazon, cancelling Prime is so difficult that Norwegan Consumer Council and 15 others yesterday started a legal fight with Amazon: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-customers-to-stay-subscribed/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-... The video there is quite aggravating.
  - KingOfCoders 6y ago
    I've cancelled Prime, now they hit me with week long delivery times which after a day are reduced by half or less, just to get me back on Prime.
    - uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
      Seven of Prime, Tertiary Attribute of Bezos
    - delfinom 6y ago
      That's normal for non-prime. You get thrown onto the back of the priority queue but at the same time get on the wild scheduling ride their systems take.
    - zwaps 6y ago
      I still have prime, and a good half of my "next day shipping" deliveries are delayed by a day, two days or even more. Granted, the current situation is problematic, but this happened even before and since you are prime, you don't get any money back or something like that. It's just bad luck then. Now, you might think you could rely on the services where you pay extra for same-day delivery or morning next day. But those end up missing the delivery window a good half of the times I used them - even before the pandemic. Next day or same day delivery just isn't something that seems to work reliably here in Western Europe. I know companies where a local driver will literally get in a car and bring me what I need right away, but that doesn't scale to Amazon levels. Given that prime delivery rarely holds its promise, it is no surprise that Amazon needs to make non-prime delivery even less attractive. But you know, there are other vendors! Plus, you are less likely to get a fake product if you order directly from there.
ykevinator 6y ago
Exact same experience, your first reaction when you see it is "am i logged into the right account?" because you know you have a paid account
ubermonkey 6y ago
Marketing droids are the WORST.
Causality1 6y ago
I dropped them when they restricted free accounts to three devices and I suddenly got inundated with calls from annoyed family and friends to whom I'd spent five years evangelizing.
- ballenf 6y ago
  They are the only company I know that continuously pulls features from existing tiers while raising prices on all tiers. They act like a monopoly seemingly oblivious to the many viable alternatives out there today.
- adamc 6y ago
  Yep. I've been gradually replacing them because of that.
mkr-hn 6y ago
I stopped using Dropbox when they stopped allowing bulk note exports in Paper. Paper is so good, but it's ruined by their moat-building. They seem to be headed down a path of increasingly dark patterns.
- kmisiunas 6y ago
  I immediately download all my Paper notes. On the upside, the bulk downloading option is still available: Dropbox Paper > Your Icon > Download docs you created.
  - mkr-hn 6y ago
    I wouldn't have moved away from Dropbox if that option existed on my account. The options I see: Upgrade Settings Install Dropbox app Sign out Add team account
joering2 6y ago
Privately I left Dropbox long ago when they stop supporting bit-by-bit comparison, and moved into chunk-by-chunk check. Found out hard way when detached VeryCrypt secure trunk and attached it day later on another machine. Started scratching my head what the heck. Upon checking, the file was not synced/uploaded and that's how I managed to discover their change. Business-wise, it was a stuck forced update that made me drop them (pun intended). At some version it did not want to open anymore before update. Fine. The problem was that you could not download update; it was downloader you download and that downloader himself pick file over the internet to download. Problem is the folder and file name was always different causing my simplewall (best firewall I know for Windows 10) to block the file each single time. Before I had chance to fiddle with firewall settings - something I never like doing - I was already registered into lifetime 2TB offer with pCloud, including their "Cyrpto" package for $299 one-time. Never looked back. And also upload speeds I found much faster than DropBox. As of syncing... I think its decent enough. Never had problem. Although their local drive logic is tad different - you are mounting a remote drive which is not equally convenient like DropBox local folder, but at least pCloud does not check folder for changes non-stop. Disclaimer: have nothing to do with pCloud as a company, just their happy client.
zerkten 6y ago
> I actually had a conversation with a product manager; I checked the yes you can contact me when I cancelled my account. They simply refused to admit that an upsell was a advertisement and that disrupting my workflow on my paid, professional account for an ad was wrong. I'm not in the slightest bit surprised. As product management has exploded as a role (look at the number of courses, books, etc.) there has been a huge influx of people with less experience, and most importantly perhaps, less breadth of experience. This is a good thing in the long-term, but there will be growing pains. I feel like the usual trope for programmers is that "PMs aren't technical enough", but the bigger issue for companies is that they don't have a breadth of experience and develop a narrower set of skills than they historically have. They smart and driven, but cost is what you are seeing with the cognitive dissonance. This is less noticeable in smaller startups. The problem is exacerbated in more mature products like Dropbox where they are trying to move an existing user base onto a higher profit line of products. You need to have the broader base that PMs at legacy companies (e.g. Microsoft) have to make this shift. Further, it's harder to appear credible with enterprise customers beyond shadow IT.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
eitland 6y ago
I still have a free Dropbox account but I'm not buying. I had 16GB permanent at some point (and up to 50GB temporarily for various promotions) but at some point they cut my account to 10 for no good reason at acted dumb when I asked them about it. Microsoft gave me 5GB extra for uploading photos and shortly afterwards reduced it, forcing me to delete them, luckily I had them backed up elsewhere. Google Photos have started trying to monetize what they promised for free to (kind of expected, but with Google they could also have decided to shutter it). On one hand: we cannot expect companies to give things away for free. On the other hand: when they've given things away for free unforced it doesn't make them look good when they take away what they gave away. I now go with hetzner.com or something similar. It is paid and while that doesn't guarantee that they won't do something stupid at least they haven't a massive history of doing stupid things unforced.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Companies throughout history have used the promotional idea of giving something away for free or drastically reduced rates for a new something in order to attract attention. Even drug dealers are known for "the first one's free" type of setup. Storage units have "first month free", cable companies "sign up now for 3 months at $49/mo for 6 months" kind of stuff. It wasn't until sleazy startups and SaaS types come along that do things like "free and always will be" *until we realize we were not good business people and can't run a business like that. Everything else has been regulated up the wazoo, but for some reason tech has been able to avoid these regulations OR flat out ignored them under the guise of "disrupting" the markets.
  - bredren 6y ago
    Washington Post and NY Times digital subscriptions do the same thing. If you subscribe to either, you can try cancelling and they’ll restore the reasonable price.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I’ve just started moving big files into S3/Glacier/B2 (Backblaze API compatible S3 competitor). If you know how to use these tools, they’re far more long term reliable than any Dropbox like service in terms of offering and pricing.
cool-RR 6y ago
I use Dropbox the same way you did: As a screwdriver. This means, it does its job, it does it well, I'm not looking to make it a part of my life beyond that. I don't want new features or collaboration, and I definitely don't want to pay more than I do or see ads. The screwdriver-manufacturing business is not very profitable, so nobody wants to be in it.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  Good analogy; my hammer manufacturer, Evernote, also has this disease. No, I don't want chat or Evernote for Business ...
mathattack 6y ago
I had a similar experience after kicking out Box. Sometimes enterprise SW companies get so caught up in the 20% of power users that they forget the value of simplicity for the 80%.
ashtonkem 6y ago
In my experience, product people often seem to get some pretty extreme tunnel vision about how the product should work vs. what customers really want. I’ve seen it enough to assume that something about that role incentivizes this behavior.
sam1r 6y ago
>> they couldn’t grok the reason B2b enterprise “feature” apps don’t understand the b2c direct to consumer perspective.
leokennis 6y ago
I have to say, for all the valid hate it usually gets, iCloud is actually becoming a pretty nice “usb drive in the cloud” compared to the bullshit that is getting tacked on to Dropbox, Google Drive and to a lesser extent OneDrive. On the other hand, I still keep a large WebDAV/OwnCloud server close for the moment iCloud turns to shit too.
nbzso 6y ago
I am early user of Dropbox. Everything was fine and then three devices per account policy arrived. The next morning I deleted all my files. Bought my self a Synology installed Cloud Station and now I have a my own cloud storage, with no ads or shady UX.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Nextgrid 6y ago

> they just couldn't grok the reason It's hard to make someone understand something when their salary (and entire reputation - given that increasing engagement/retention by X% is a big selling point on a resume) depends on not understanding it.

Ensorceled 6y ago
Yes, but usually in that situation, the misunderstanding is intentional. This seemed a genuine inability to understand why I would quit over "a simple upsell". I am sure the inability to understand that it was a dark pattern to have no [X] or [SKIP] button was intentional :-)
- mrjin 6y ago
  Well that was simply arrogance that can be see in almost every large organizations: they believe everyone would like their idea. The problem maybe most people do like their idea but there would be always someone does not.
- durnygbur 6y ago
  > This seemed a genuine inability to understand why I would quit over "a simple upsell". Similar situation with major retail chains delivering brochures to a doorstep, or a bank clerk upselling bank credit and investment funds. It's not inability to understand, they are financially rewarded by doing this to you and their supervisors are malicious sociopaths. Their attitude is "why this person doesn't let me do my job".
ryandrake 6y ago
This is usually it! As developers, we have all worked on features where it was obvious that users wouldn’t want it, but the feature would juice some metric so it was prioritized. Some time between that initial meeting about how this will juice the metric and launch, Product convinced themselves that users would actually want it and are not prepared to accept the feature’s failure. Finally, when indeed users don’t want to use it, it would get pushed at them repeatedly, through sales and through dark UI patterns. Tale as old as time... This is what happens when you plan your product not from user need but from company need.

KingOfCoders 6y ago

Same with the ads for Amazon videos on Amazon Prime. They are ads and I don't want ads. But they don't see it that way (don't get me started on the forced watching of texts on Blue Rays).

matsemann 6y ago
Yes wtf, I'm already paying and trying to watch a series I enjoy, stop pestering me. Just one of many dark patterns at Amazon, cancelling Prime is so difficult that Norwegan Consumer Council and 15 others yesterday started a legal fight with Amazon: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-customers-to-stay-subscribed/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/amazon-manipulates-... The video there is quite aggravating.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  I've cancelled Prime, now they hit me with week long delivery times which after a day are reduced by half or less, just to get me back on Prime.
  - uCantCauseUCant 6y ago
    Seven of Prime, Tertiary Attribute of Bezos
  - delfinom 6y ago
    That's normal for non-prime. You get thrown onto the back of the priority queue but at the same time get on the wild scheduling ride their systems take.
  - zwaps 6y ago
    I still have prime, and a good half of my "next day shipping" deliveries are delayed by a day, two days or even more. Granted, the current situation is problematic, but this happened even before and since you are prime, you don't get any money back or something like that. It's just bad luck then. Now, you might think you could rely on the services where you pay extra for same-day delivery or morning next day. But those end up missing the delivery window a good half of the times I used them - even before the pandemic. Next day or same day delivery just isn't something that seems to work reliably here in Western Europe. I know companies where a local driver will literally get in a car and bring me what I need right away, but that doesn't scale to Amazon levels. Given that prime delivery rarely holds its promise, it is no surprise that Amazon needs to make non-prime delivery even less attractive. But you know, there are other vendors! Plus, you are less likely to get a fake product if you order directly from there.

ykevinator 6y ago

Exact same experience, your first reaction when you see it is "am i logged into the right account?" because you know you have a paid account

ubermonkey 6y ago

Marketing droids are the WORST.

Causality1 6y ago

I dropped them when they restricted free accounts to three devices and I suddenly got inundated with calls from annoyed family and friends to whom I'd spent five years evangelizing.

ballenf 6y ago
They are the only company I know that continuously pulls features from existing tiers while raising prices on all tiers. They act like a monopoly seemingly oblivious to the many viable alternatives out there today.
adamc 6y ago
Yep. I've been gradually replacing them because of that.

mkr-hn 6y ago

I stopped using Dropbox when they stopped allowing bulk note exports in Paper. Paper is so good, but it's ruined by their moat-building. They seem to be headed down a path of increasingly dark patterns.

kmisiunas 6y ago
I immediately download all my Paper notes. On the upside, the bulk downloading option is still available: Dropbox Paper > Your Icon > Download docs you created.
- mkr-hn 6y ago
  I wouldn't have moved away from Dropbox if that option existed on my account. The options I see: Upgrade Settings Install Dropbox app Sign out Add team account

joering2 6y ago

Privately I left Dropbox long ago when they stop supporting bit-by-bit comparison, and moved into chunk-by-chunk check. Found out hard way when detached VeryCrypt secure trunk and attached it day later on another machine. Started scratching my head what the heck. Upon checking, the file was not synced/uploaded and that's how I managed to discover their change. Business-wise, it was a stuck forced update that made me drop them (pun intended). At some version it did not want to open anymore before update. Fine. The problem was that you could not download update; it was downloader you download and that downloader himself pick file over the internet to download. Problem is the folder and file name was always different causing my simplewall (best firewall I know for Windows 10) to block the file each single time. Before I had chance to fiddle with firewall settings - something I never like doing - I was already registered into lifetime 2TB offer with pCloud, including their "Cyrpto" package for $299 one-time. Never looked back. And also upload speeds I found much faster than DropBox. As of syncing... I think its decent enough. Never had problem. Although their local drive logic is tad different - you are mounting a remote drive which is not equally convenient like DropBox local folder, but at least pCloud does not check folder for changes non-stop. Disclaimer: have nothing to do with pCloud as a company, just their happy client.

zerkten 6y ago

> I actually had a conversation with a product manager; I checked the yes you can contact me when I cancelled my account. They simply refused to admit that an upsell was a advertisement and that disrupting my workflow on my paid, professional account for an ad was wrong. I'm not in the slightest bit surprised. As product management has exploded as a role (look at the number of courses, books, etc.) there has been a huge influx of people with less experience, and most importantly perhaps, less breadth of experience. This is a good thing in the long-term, but there will be growing pains. I feel like the usual trope for programmers is that "PMs aren't technical enough", but the bigger issue for companies is that they don't have a breadth of experience and develop a narrower set of skills than they historically have. They smart and driven, but cost is what you are seeing with the cognitive dissonance. This is less noticeable in smaller startups. The problem is exacerbated in more mature products like Dropbox where they are trying to move an existing user base onto a higher profit line of products. You need to have the broader base that PMs at legacy companies (e.g. Microsoft) have to make this shift. Further, it's harder to appear credible with enterprise customers beyond shadow IT.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

eitland 6y ago

I still have a free Dropbox account but I'm not buying. I had 16GB permanent at some point (and up to 50GB temporarily for various promotions) but at some point they cut my account to 10 for no good reason at acted dumb when I asked them about it. Microsoft gave me 5GB extra for uploading photos and shortly afterwards reduced it, forcing me to delete them, luckily I had them backed up elsewhere. Google Photos have started trying to monetize what they promised for free to (kind of expected, but with Google they could also have decided to shutter it). On one hand: we cannot expect companies to give things away for free. On the other hand: when they've given things away for free unforced it doesn't make them look good when they take away what they gave away. I now go with hetzner.com or something similar. It is paid and while that doesn't guarantee that they won't do something stupid at least they haven't a massive history of doing stupid things unforced.

dylan604 6y ago
Companies throughout history have used the promotional idea of giving something away for free or drastically reduced rates for a new something in order to attract attention. Even drug dealers are known for "the first one's free" type of setup. Storage units have "first month free", cable companies "sign up now for 3 months at $49/mo for 6 months" kind of stuff. It wasn't until sleazy startups and SaaS types come along that do things like "free and always will be" *until we realize we were not good business people and can't run a business like that. Everything else has been regulated up the wazoo, but for some reason tech has been able to avoid these regulations OR flat out ignored them under the guise of "disrupting" the markets.
- bredren 6y ago
  Washington Post and NY Times digital subscriptions do the same thing. If you subscribe to either, you can try cancelling and they’ll restore the reasonable price.
ashtonkem 6y ago
I’ve just started moving big files into S3/Glacier/B2 (Backblaze API compatible S3 competitor). If you know how to use these tools, they’re far more long term reliable than any Dropbox like service in terms of offering and pricing.

cool-RR 6y ago

I use Dropbox the same way you did: As a screwdriver. This means, it does its job, it does it well, I'm not looking to make it a part of my life beyond that. I don't want new features or collaboration, and I definitely don't want to pay more than I do or see ads. The screwdriver-manufacturing business is not very profitable, so nobody wants to be in it.

Ensorceled 6y ago
Good analogy; my hammer manufacturer, Evernote, also has this disease. No, I don't want chat or Evernote for Business ...

mathattack 6y ago

I had a similar experience after kicking out Box. Sometimes enterprise SW companies get so caught up in the 20% of power users that they forget the value of simplicity for the 80%.

ashtonkem 6y ago

In my experience, product people often seem to get some pretty extreme tunnel vision about how the product should work vs. what customers really want. I’ve seen it enough to assume that something about that role incentivizes this behavior.

sam1r 6y ago

>> they couldn’t grok the reason B2b enterprise “feature” apps don’t understand the b2c direct to consumer perspective.

leokennis 6y ago

I have to say, for all the valid hate it usually gets, iCloud is actually becoming a pretty nice “usb drive in the cloud” compared to the bullshit that is getting tacked on to Dropbox, Google Drive and to a lesser extent OneDrive. On the other hand, I still keep a large WebDAV/OwnCloud server close for the moment iCloud turns to shit too.

nbzso 6y ago

I am early user of Dropbox. Everything was fine and then three devices per account policy arrived. The next morning I deleted all my files. Bought my self a Synology installed Cloud Station and now I have a my own cloud storage, with no ads or shady UX.