4 ms·

You're saying Dropbox is a grift with a $7bn market cap?

by camjw 4y ago

cowtools 4y ago
Yes. The internet is broken, and a lot of these companies are based on selling "solutions" to these artificial problems. Another example is Cloudflare. If the internet was designed properly, you wouldn't have DDoS attacks in the first place. There would be no one to sell DDoS protection to, no one to rent out botnets to. You wouldn't even need most web/file "hosting" in the traditional sense if you could just share static files with bittorrent/IPFS.
- camjw 4y ago
  Right. I'll bite, how is Dropbox not a _real_ solution to a _real_ problem of "I want to share this file with someone else or somewhere else"? Hate to say it but I feel like the answer is going to involve "web3 fixes this".
  - cowtools 4y ago
    Peer-to-peer file transfers will always be faster than having an intermediary. Why not use bittorrent or IPFS? P.S. The problem dropbox "fixes" is that there is no decent file transfer protocol that is IP agnostic. Using something like bittorrent's or IPFS' DHT fixes this. Dropbox "fixes" this by making file transfer into a paid service
    - Kye 4y ago
      I'm not going to deliver a commission over BitTorrent or IPFS. That's absurd.
    - IanCal 4y ago
      > Why not use bittorrent or IPFS? The last time I used IPFS it took four hours before I could access the file just using the hash or even the public gateway after pushing it to several major pinning services.
    - seized 4y ago
      I've had files sitting on Google Drive for longer than IPFS has existed. Let's not pretend that IPFS/etc is a solution to relying on services that are far older than it.
    - camjw 4y ago
      Okay, cool, the majority of Dropbox users I know do not use the product because of speed or because of any IP agnosticism. It's a shame all these users are so stupid and don't use IPFS or bittorrent instead, amirite?
    - crummy 4y ago
      > Peer-to-peer file transfers will always be faster than having an intermediary. Why not use bittorrent One reason is that such a scenario relies on one of my computers with bittorrent-dropbox to be online for me to access my files elsewhere. Syncing it in the cloud means they are available reliably.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tcmart14 4y ago
  I don't know if I would jump straight to a grift, it comes down to use case. If people are just dumping random documents, sure. And selling people that they need to back up every picture they have taken on their phone that they will probably not look at again is a bit grifty. However keeping digital copies of important documents is not a bad idea, like a house burnt down situation. Ideally, you maybe have family you can trust to keep a USB with those documents, but that is not always an option for some people.
- thephyber 4y ago
  How do you think the internet should have been designed to make CDN, DDoS protection, and file hosting better than the existing services?
yellowapple 4y ago
People keep saying cryptocurrency is a grift despite having multiple orders of magnitude greater of a market cap, so sure, why not?
- ultra_chad 4y ago
  Because it is a grift.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    And so is Dropbox, then. See? We both can play that game!
    - jollybean 4y ago
      Dropbox is a useful service. The comment about 'bit torrent' makes little sense. Having cloud storage 24/7 high availability has utility. (Yes, if the interent were designed a bit different, that config might be slightly different, but there'd be some value in Dropbox in there somehow). Bitcoin has no utility. It has the 'promise' of utility, which is the current utility it rests upon, making the underlying value quite difficult to determine. If BTC were to dissapear, the world wouldn't skip a beat, and we would have no need to 'reinvent' BTC. We would likely to continue to think about and experiment with other things, but as it stands so far, BTC isn't the solution to anything.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        > If BTC were to dissapear, the world wouldn't skip a beat, and we would have no need to 'reinvent' BTC. There would be no need to 'reinvent' Dropbox, either. People would do so for both regardless of necessity (and indeed have done so for both, ad nauseam) because they find them and the concepts thereof useful or interesting, contrary to what you or I might assert.
        jollybean 4y ago
knorker 4y ago
Heh, sounds like they're saying "the cloud is just someone else's computer", which is the same as "the bakery is just someone else's oven". The bank is just someone else's ledger. Yes. As a service. Which is what people want. Nobody wants to run their own bakery just to get a bagel.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Some people do, and it should be possible for them to do so. And some people don't, and it should be possible for them to get ledger-as-a-service. Why can't there be room for both?
  - knorker 4y ago
    I'm not trying to ban people from becoming bakers. You do you. I'm saying they should temper their expectations, if they think that secretly everyone wants to be a baker, and in the future a meaningful fraction will be. Most people, when they go to a baker and ask for a bagel, will not want the answer "great, so just buy this oven from amazon. I'll show you how to use it when it arrives'. Cryptocurrency advocates are wrong about what other people want, or will want. They can LARP if they want, but that doesn't mean that it's value to other people.
- camjw 4y ago
  > Heh, sounds like they're saying "the cloud is just someone else's computer", which is the same as "the bakery is just someone else's oven". I've not heard this before, I will remember it. This is such a good retort.

You're saying Dropbox is a grift with a $7bn market cap?

by camjw 4y ago

You're saying Dropbox is a grift with a $7bn market cap?

Yes. The internet is broken, and a lot of these companies are based on selling "solutions" to these artificial problems. Another example is Cloudflare. If the internet was designed properly, you wouldn't have DDoS attacks in the first place. There would be no one to sell DDoS protection to, no one to rent out botnets to. You wouldn't even need most web/file "hosting" in the traditional sense if you could just share static files with bittorrent/IPFS.

camjw 4y ago
Right. I'll bite, how is Dropbox not a _real_ solution to a _real_ problem of "I want to share this file with someone else or somewhere else"? Hate to say it but I feel like the answer is going to involve "web3 fixes this".
- cowtools 4y ago
  Peer-to-peer file transfers will always be faster than having an intermediary. Why not use bittorrent or IPFS? P.S. The problem dropbox "fixes" is that there is no decent file transfer protocol that is IP agnostic. Using something like bittorrent's or IPFS' DHT fixes this. Dropbox "fixes" this by making file transfer into a paid service
  - Kye 4y ago
    I'm not going to deliver a commission over BitTorrent or IPFS. That's absurd.
  - IanCal 4y ago
    > Why not use bittorrent or IPFS? The last time I used IPFS it took four hours before I could access the file just using the hash or even the public gateway after pushing it to several major pinning services.
  - seized 4y ago
    I've had files sitting on Google Drive for longer than IPFS has existed. Let's not pretend that IPFS/etc is a solution to relying on services that are far older than it.
  - camjw 4y ago
    Okay, cool, the majority of Dropbox users I know do not use the product because of speed or because of any IP agnosticism. It's a shame all these users are so stupid and don't use IPFS or bittorrent instead, amirite?
  - crummy 4y ago
    > Peer-to-peer file transfers will always be faster than having an intermediary. Why not use bittorrent One reason is that such a scenario relies on one of my computers with bittorrent-dropbox to be online for me to access my files elsewhere. Syncing it in the cloud means they are available reliably.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tcmart14 4y ago
I don't know if I would jump straight to a grift, it comes down to use case. If people are just dumping random documents, sure. And selling people that they need to back up every picture they have taken on their phone that they will probably not look at again is a bit grifty. However keeping digital copies of important documents is not a bad idea, like a house burnt down situation. Ideally, you maybe have family you can trust to keep a USB with those documents, but that is not always an option for some people.
thephyber 4y ago
How do you think the internet should have been designed to make CDN, DDoS protection, and file hosting better than the existing services?

yellowapple 4y ago

People keep saying cryptocurrency is a grift despite having multiple orders of magnitude greater of a market cap, so sure, why not?

ultra_chad 4y ago
Because it is a grift.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  And so is Dropbox, then. See? We both can play that game!
  - jollybean 4y ago
    Dropbox is a useful service. The comment about 'bit torrent' makes little sense. Having cloud storage 24/7 high availability has utility. (Yes, if the interent were designed a bit different, that config might be slightly different, but there'd be some value in Dropbox in there somehow). Bitcoin has no utility. It has the 'promise' of utility, which is the current utility it rests upon, making the underlying value quite difficult to determine. If BTC were to dissapear, the world wouldn't skip a beat, and we would have no need to 'reinvent' BTC. We would likely to continue to think about and experiment with other things, but as it stands so far, BTC isn't the solution to anything.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > If BTC were to dissapear, the world wouldn't skip a beat, and we would have no need to 'reinvent' BTC. There would be no need to 'reinvent' Dropbox, either. People would do so for both regardless of necessity (and indeed have done so for both, ad nauseam) because they find them and the concepts thereof useful or interesting, contrary to what you or I might assert.
      - jollybean 4y ago

knorker 4y ago

Heh, sounds like they're saying "the cloud is just someone else's computer", which is the same as "the bakery is just someone else's oven". The bank is just someone else's ledger. Yes. As a service. Which is what people want. Nobody wants to run their own bakery just to get a bagel.

int_19h 4y ago
Some people do, and it should be possible for them to do so. And some people don't, and it should be possible for them to get ledger-as-a-service. Why can't there be room for both?
- knorker 4y ago
  I'm not trying to ban people from becoming bakers. You do you. I'm saying they should temper their expectations, if they think that secretly everyone wants to be a baker, and in the future a meaningful fraction will be. Most people, when they go to a baker and ask for a bagel, will not want the answer "great, so just buy this oven from amazon. I'll show you how to use it when it arrives'. Cryptocurrency advocates are wrong about what other people want, or will want. They can LARP if they want, but that doesn't mean that it's value to other people.
camjw 4y ago
> Heh, sounds like they're saying "the cloud is just someone else's computer", which is the same as "the bakery is just someone else's oven". I've not heard this before, I will remember it. This is such a good retort.