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I'd guess it's because the pricing doesn't work out in the aggregate. If more people would downgrade to 25GB from 50GB than would be motivated to pull out thei

by roc 15y ago

I'd guess it's because the pricing doesn't work out in the aggregate. If more people would downgrade to 25GB from 50GB than would be motivated to pull out their credit-card by the inclusion of a 25GB plan, the thing would be a net loss for Dropbox. And, honestly, I can't imagine there are many people willing to pay $5/mo but unwilling to go to $10/mo. $5/mo is such a minor difference compared to the costs implicit in even having a multiple-machine sync-ing problem to solve.

roc 15y ago
Thinking about it more, I wonder if Dropbox's mistake here wasn't in having too-high an initial price, but in being too-generous with the storage attached to that price. 50GB is more than most people need to sync. It feels almost wasteful to have that much unused storage on a 50GB plan. Perhaps 25GB should have been $10, 50GB $15 and 100GB $20. Paying for 25GB when you only need 15GB might not feel as wasteful as paying for 50GB when you only need 15GB. Even if the net cost is the same.
- TillE 15y ago
  That's basically what I was going to say. If you're paying $10/month for 50GB and only using a fraction of it, it feels like you're wasting money. Even if that's objectively "good value", it doesn't really matter. It's the same basic problem subscription MMOs are facing, and why so many are going free-to-play. It's also easier to convince people to pay a bunch of small one-time fees rather than a recurring monthly or yearly fee.
timwiseman 15y ago
I think your first point is brilliant, but your second I disagree with. $5/month is $60 a year, practically an impulse purchase for a lot of people. $10/month is $120/year. That psychologically adds an extra digit to both the monthly and years and that is also high enough to be outside impulse buy range. Anecdotally, I love dropbox, but I don't even fully use the 2GB free account (mostly text files). I would pay $60/year immediately for even a 5GB or 10GB plan on the possibility I might need it swiftly or to give me the freedom of tossing on some more pictures of the kids. But I can't justify $120/year when I still have space left ont he free account.
- roc 15y ago
  I don't doubt that you and people like you are out there. I just wonder how many of you there are. Again, even a 10GB plan might cleave off too many 50GB users for the numbers to work out. And for 5GB, surely more people would spam their friends for referrals or make fake email accounts, than break out their credit cards to set up recurring billing.

by roc 15y ago

roc 15y ago

Thinking about it more, I wonder if Dropbox's mistake here wasn't in having too-high an initial price, but in being too-generous with the storage attached to that price. 50GB is more than most people need to sync. It feels almost wasteful to have that much unused storage on a 50GB plan. Perhaps 25GB should have been $10, 50GB $15 and 100GB $20. Paying for 25GB when you only need 15GB might not feel as wasteful as paying for 50GB when you only need 15GB. Even if the net cost is the same.

TillE 15y ago
That's basically what I was going to say. If you're paying $10/month for 50GB and only using a fraction of it, it feels like you're wasting money. Even if that's objectively "good value", it doesn't really matter. It's the same basic problem subscription MMOs are facing, and why so many are going free-to-play. It's also easier to convince people to pay a bunch of small one-time fees rather than a recurring monthly or yearly fee.

timwiseman 15y ago

I think your first point is brilliant, but your second I disagree with. $5/month is $60 a year, practically an impulse purchase for a lot of people. $10/month is $120/year. That psychologically adds an extra digit to both the monthly and years and that is also high enough to be outside impulse buy range. Anecdotally, I love dropbox, but I don't even fully use the 2GB free account (mostly text files). I would pay $60/year immediately for even a 5GB or 10GB plan on the possibility I might need it swiftly or to give me the freedom of tossing on some more pictures of the kids. But I can't justify $120/year when I still have space left ont he free account.

roc 15y ago
I don't doubt that you and people like you are out there. I just wonder how many of you there are. Again, even a 10GB plan might cleave off too many 50GB users for the numbers to work out. And for 5GB, surely more people would spam their friends for referrals or make fake email accounts, than break out their credit cards to set up recurring billing.