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> at least as an individual I always see Google Drive as a single user cloud light system that allows for some sharing and organizational functions... but still

> at least as an individual I always see Google Drive as a single user cloud light system that allows for some sharing and organizational functions... but still not an "industrial" type cloud service. That may be how you view the product, but Google Drive absolutely is used as an enterprise cloud service by many large companies. And as a result, there are lots of applications that integrate with its API, etc., to serve those enterprise use cases.

duxup 4y ago
I don't doubt people do it. Humans are industrious and users will push things to their limits. I just wonder .... is that what Google built Drive for? / how much of that they were thinking of.
- unmole 4y ago
  Google Drive is part Google Workspace which is a paid enterprise offering.
  - duxup 4y ago
    I know. But enterprise user and enterprise, back end for an enterprise application is different.
- lazide 4y ago
  At Google’s scale for consumer users, on their backend it has to be an enterprise scale product anyway or the whole thing would have imploded shortly after launch. Sometimes there are random UX/UI/API limitations, but those usually get fixed relatively quickly when someone hits them, because they’re typically just some hardcoded limit someone put in a front end layer because it was ‘more than enough’ and they needed something. A bit of elbow grease to clean up that path if it seems useful, and it’s usually good again.
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > I just wonder .... is that what Google built Drive for? / how much of that they were thinking of. They sell enterprise plans, and have for years. It's definitely an intended use of their product. https://workspace.google.com/products/drive/ https://workspace.google.com/products/drive/ It's funny to read your comment, because to me, Google Drive feels like an enterprise product that incidentally happens to provide a consumer-facing version as well, not the other way around.
  - hirako2000 4y ago
    The assumption stems from the facts that a/ it started as personal use, like gmail. Only way later workspace and that the gsuite name even came out. Certainly no enterprise offering for years after personal use was broadly well adopted. b/ contrary to most SaaS businesses, Google is rather subtle and gentle when it comes to promoting or upselling, many people don't even know a paid/pro version of this thing exists. But you are right, google offers enterprise grade solutions so is expected to support over a few million files per account or even per user. Maybe something changed due to hasty cost cutting measures given the sudden interest by many on the issue tracker.
    - chimeracoder 4y ago
      > The assumption stems from the facts that a/ it started as personal use, like gmail. Only way later workspace and that the gsuite name even came out. Certainly no enterprise offering for years after personal use was broadly well adopted. Yes - I mean, sort of. It depends on what you define as the starting point for Google Drive. Like many Google products, the brand has been reorganized and reused a number of times. If you look at Google Drive as an extension of Google Docs, which existed prior to 2012, then yes, it started off as personal use. But if you look at it as a thing that launched in 2012 (the introduction of the Google Drive brand), then it arguably belongs as part of the reorganization that involved ending G Suite and turning it into Google Apps for Work[0], which is now known as Google Workspace. In fact, now that the consumer version of Google Drive has been reorganized into Google One, you could argue that the enterprise version of Google Drive is actually older than the consumer version! Of course, all of these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, because it's the same product that you've used all along, and the only thing that changes is the pricing and the marketing. But if we're talking about consumer vs. enterprise versions of a commodity product that essentially operates at enterprise-scale for consumers, that's also the only real difference. It's actually quite funny that the same product (which has been improved slightly, but is largely identical to what it was over a decade ago) has had so many different brands attached to it, especially when you consider that some of those brands are essentially container formats that repackage the same underlying brand (e.g., Google Workspace contains Google Drive). [0] There was actually a rebrand in between, from 2012-2015, but because Google's product names are Alphabet soup, I can't be sure of what they called it in the interim, though I'm positive it was a distinct product from before 2012.

duxup 4y ago

I don't doubt people do it. Humans are industrious and users will push things to their limits. I just wonder .... is that what Google built Drive for? / how much of that they were thinking of.

unmole 4y ago
Google Drive is part Google Workspace which is a paid enterprise offering.
- duxup 4y ago
  I know. But enterprise user and enterprise, back end for an enterprise application is different.
lazide 4y ago
At Google’s scale for consumer users, on their backend it has to be an enterprise scale product anyway or the whole thing would have imploded shortly after launch. Sometimes there are random UX/UI/API limitations, but those usually get fixed relatively quickly when someone hits them, because they’re typically just some hardcoded limit someone put in a front end layer because it was ‘more than enough’ and they needed something. A bit of elbow grease to clean up that path if it seems useful, and it’s usually good again.
chimeracoder 4y ago
> I just wonder .... is that what Google built Drive for? / how much of that they were thinking of. They sell enterprise plans, and have for years. It's definitely an intended use of their product. https://workspace.google.com/products/drive/ https://workspace.google.com/products/drive/ It's funny to read your comment, because to me, Google Drive feels like an enterprise product that incidentally happens to provide a consumer-facing version as well, not the other way around.
- hirako2000 4y ago
  The assumption stems from the facts that a/ it started as personal use, like gmail. Only way later workspace and that the gsuite name even came out. Certainly no enterprise offering for years after personal use was broadly well adopted. b/ contrary to most SaaS businesses, Google is rather subtle and gentle when it comes to promoting or upselling, many people don't even know a paid/pro version of this thing exists. But you are right, google offers enterprise grade solutions so is expected to support over a few million files per account or even per user. Maybe something changed due to hasty cost cutting measures given the sudden interest by many on the issue tracker.
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    > The assumption stems from the facts that a/ it started as personal use, like gmail. Only way later workspace and that the gsuite name even came out. Certainly no enterprise offering for years after personal use was broadly well adopted. Yes - I mean, sort of. It depends on what you define as the starting point for Google Drive. Like many Google products, the brand has been reorganized and reused a number of times. If you look at Google Drive as an extension of Google Docs, which existed prior to 2012, then yes, it started off as personal use. But if you look at it as a thing that launched in 2012 (the introduction of the Google Drive brand), then it arguably belongs as part of the reorganization that involved ending G Suite and turning it into Google Apps for Work[0], which is now known as Google Workspace. In fact, now that the consumer version of Google Drive has been reorganized into Google One, you could argue that the enterprise version of Google Drive is actually older than the consumer version! Of course, all of these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, because it's the same product that you've used all along, and the only thing that changes is the pricing and the marketing. But if we're talking about consumer vs. enterprise versions of a commodity product that essentially operates at enterprise-scale for consumers, that's also the only real difference. It's actually quite funny that the same product (which has been improved slightly, but is largely identical to what it was over a decade ago) has had so many different brands attached to it, especially when you consider that some of those brands are essentially container formats that repackage the same underlying brand (e.g., Google Workspace contains Google Drive). [0] There was actually a rebrand in between, from 2012-2015, but because Google's product names are Alphabet soup, I can't be sure of what they called it in the interim, though I'm positive it was a distinct product from before 2012.