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Dropbox is the only SaaS I have ever used that fucked up its redesign badly enough to make me—a previously-thrilled customer—jump ship to a technically-inferior

by tsm 5y ago

Dropbox is the only SaaS I have ever used that fucked up its redesign badly enough to make me—a previously-thrilled customer—jump ship to a technically-inferior and more-expensive product. I don't regret it whatsoever.

ihateolives 5y ago
For me Dropbox is still better than the competition (don't know about iCloud, never used it) and I don't even remember what redesign you're talking about. I've always used it as set and forget sync, I rarely see the interface or the web page.
- wingerlang 5y ago
  I switched to iCloud and apart from not seeing the sync status in the menu bar (and the folder location being .. worse) it's as good as Dropbox. Set and forget.
  - meerita 5y ago
    Totally! iCloud is quite transparent and well integrated. It works like a charm on macs. No need to use horrible Google's Drive or Dropbox anymore.
wingerlang 5y ago
I disliked the Dropbox redesign as well, then I went back to using it exactly the same way I've done for the previous 10 years -- not seeing any UI whatsoever.
- tsm 5y ago
  I was on the free plan (which I'd worked up to 10.5GB of storage through various incentive programs they ran) and specifically objected to 1. Limiting me to three clients at once. (Work computer, personal computer (Linux), personal computer (Windows), phone—oops! 2. Bombarding me with "your storage is almost full!" notifications either by email or when I visited dropbox.com to, e.g., get a share link for someone. Usually I had over a gigabyte of storage left. The webapp was at times unusable due to the volume of notifications. 3. Prohibiting me from keeping offline copies of entire directories on my phone. Now I'm spending $20/month on a VPS running Nextcloud and am much happier.
  - wingerlang 5y ago
    Seems like all of your issues could be resolved by paying for it, which is WAY cheaper than $20/month.
    - Kwpolska 5y ago
      I would expect them to be getting more value from the $20/month VPS, otherwise they could go with a $5/month plan (half of Dropbox’s cheapest plan). Myself, I resolved the 3-client limit (which they hit me with when switching to a new phone — trying to use backups stored in Dropbox) by a swift migration to OneDrive (where I have 40 GB of free space due to various offers and grandfathering, that’s plenty enough for me). The Linux situation isn’t ideal (there’s a reasonable CLI-only not-real-time client), but otherwise, it’s great. And if I did decide to pay, there’s a neat and cheap 100 GB plan for 2€/month, or a 69€/year plan with 1 TB and desktop Microsoft Office — a bargain compared to Dropbox’s 2-TB-and-not-much-else for €120/year plan. The only thing Dropbox has these days is name recognition and intertia, everyone else’s offerings are cheaper and have more features.

by tsm 5y ago

ihateolives 5y ago

For me Dropbox is still better than the competition (don't know about iCloud, never used it) and I don't even remember what redesign you're talking about. I've always used it as set and forget sync, I rarely see the interface or the web page.

wingerlang 5y ago
I switched to iCloud and apart from not seeing the sync status in the menu bar (and the folder location being .. worse) it's as good as Dropbox. Set and forget.
- meerita 5y ago
  Totally! iCloud is quite transparent and well integrated. It works like a charm on macs. No need to use horrible Google's Drive or Dropbox anymore.

wingerlang 5y ago

I disliked the Dropbox redesign as well, then I went back to using it exactly the same way I've done for the previous 10 years -- not seeing any UI whatsoever.

tsm 5y ago
I was on the free plan (which I'd worked up to 10.5GB of storage through various incentive programs they ran) and specifically objected to 1. Limiting me to three clients at once. (Work computer, personal computer (Linux), personal computer (Windows), phone—oops! 2. Bombarding me with "your storage is almost full!" notifications either by email or when I visited dropbox.com to, e.g., get a share link for someone. Usually I had over a gigabyte of storage left. The webapp was at times unusable due to the volume of notifications. 3. Prohibiting me from keeping offline copies of entire directories on my phone. Now I'm spending $20/month on a VPS running Nextcloud and am much happier.
- wingerlang 5y ago
  Seems like all of your issues could be resolved by paying for it, which is WAY cheaper than $20/month.
  - Kwpolska 5y ago
    I would expect them to be getting more value from the $20/month VPS, otherwise they could go with a $5/month plan (half of Dropbox’s cheapest plan). Myself, I resolved the 3-client limit (which they hit me with when switching to a new phone — trying to use backups stored in Dropbox) by a swift migration to OneDrive (where I have 40 GB of free space due to various offers and grandfathering, that’s plenty enough for me). The Linux situation isn’t ideal (there’s a reasonable CLI-only not-real-time client), but otherwise, it’s great. And if I did decide to pay, there’s a neat and cheap 100 GB plan for 2€/month, or a 69€/year plan with 1 TB and desktop Microsoft Office — a bargain compared to Dropbox’s 2-TB-and-not-much-else for €120/year plan. The only thing Dropbox has these days is name recognition and intertia, everyone else’s offerings are cheaper and have more features.