4 ms·

The circle is complete: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

by georgel 4mo ago

pikseladam 4mo ago
i didn't expect to laugh when i enter news today :)
- ignoramous 4mo ago
  Daniel Gackle thinks BrandonM's is most probably the most misunderstood comment in news.yc history. from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067281 Other users have provided the link, but my heart sinks a little every time I see this brought up, especially when the commenter is singled out by name. People forget that this is a real person. He also happens to be a great HN contributor, and has been for many years. I realize it's internet fun to point neon arrows at people seeming outrageously wrong in the past, but the truth is that people aren't reading that comment accurately and there's a huge dose of hindsight fallacy here. When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software. He meant their YC application. (Note the title of Drew's post: "My YC App"). He wasn't being a petty nitpicker—he was earnestly trying to help, and you can see in how sweetly he replied to Drew there that he genuinely wanted them to succeed. We should be so lucky for all responses to "crazy new ideas" to be that decent. This community would be healthier, and actually the current thread is a standout example of how far from true it is. The criticisms he was raising turned out to be a non-issue in hindsight, but were on point in 2007, when the idea of file synchronization was widely derided as a solution-in-search-of-a-problem which only technical users would ever care about, users who (as the comment pointed out) could already roll their own solutions. The idea had recently been publicly mocked in a famous blog post*, so it was on people's minds as the prime example of an idea only technical users would ever care about—and even YC funded Dropbox because they believed in Drew, not the idea. * described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 More: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20brandonm&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - simoncion 4mo ago
    > People forget that this is a real person. Relatedly, people tend to forget that people who are fully aware that a real person has written a foolish and/or shortsighted comment will direct criticism at said comment. I understand that there exist people who -to oversimplify- have as their creed "Thou shall not directly say anything negative about anyone ever."... but that's a minority of people. That "soft pedal" stuff doesn't work for a notable subset of people, and -for some- generates _way_ more anxiety and stress than a frank and earnest discussion about just how stupid the stupid thing you just did is. [0] I get that some folks are Care Bears (affectionate, non-derogatory), but not only is that not the only way to be, folks who are like that freak out a not-insignificant subset of the population. > When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software. Perhaps. But it looks to me like an eighth or so of the top-level commenters on the OP are talking as if the thing under discussion is application software. Maybe folks consistently abbreviated "YCombinator Funding Application" as "App" and "application software" as "application" at the time, but -if so- that's not made clear to me by reading the commentary. [0] I'd also object to any characterization that BrandonM's commentary is nitpicking in any regard. Unless you know someone pretty well, you have no idea what their background is, how careful they are, or how diligently they keep their appointments with the rubber duck. Anyone who has been in this business for five, ten+ years has seen people put a lot of work into something, but fail to understand or uncover one or more basic truths that invalidate all the work they've done. Basic sanity checks are useful.
sillysaurusx 4mo ago
I was user 315, back when it was possible to determine your user number via the public url feature. Is there anything this simple now? What I miss is being able to right click on an item, click "copy public URL", paste it into the browser, and get an exact copy of that item (with nothing else; no image overlays, no ads, nothing). In the limit case you should be able to use it as a webhosting service for static files, since visiting an html page in a browser serves that file and relative links are preserved. I guess it's a losing value proposition, but it sure would be nice. It's unfortunate the original demo video was lost to time. I remember how astounding it was.
- jeffbee 4mo ago
  > right click on an item, click "copy public URL", paste it into the browser, and get an exact copy of that item You have described Google Drive.
  - sillysaurusx 4mo ago
    Not quite; it's not a direct link to the item. Put <img src="foo.jpg"> into an html file, alongside foo.jpg. In the original Dropbox, if you opened a link to the html file, you'd see a webpage that successfully rendered foo.jpg. So you could use it as a static file host.
    - georgel 4mo ago
      It was such a nice feature too, but very easily and quickly abused.
- tyler71 4mo ago
  pcloud with the public folder works well. I've uploaded a few html ebooks with relative routing and it has worked fine.
  - sillysaurusx 4mo ago
    Where's the public folder? I tried uploading an html file but can't get a direct link to it: https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ6NzI5ZoJ0CG3nPXqBFrHeL4gaezYprgxjV https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ6NzI5ZoJ0CG3nPXqBF...
giancarlostoro 4mo ago
It is a darn shame, if the major OS providers didn't roll their own cloud storage, Dropbox could have been the default go-to across the board, and any other competitors that would have risen.
- ADent 4mo ago
  They were seemingly everywhere and lots of apps and services offered Dropbox as an option. 200 million users in 2013. Then they crippled the free plan and Apple and MS started pushing their services hard. And Dropbox seemed less ubiquitous after that.
  - giancarlostoro 4mo ago
    I remember even Ubuntu had their own storage offering, which had they kept it going, I might have subscribed to to this day. Shame, would have been an easy way for Ubuntu to fund itself.
1970-01-01 4mo ago
It was quite a stupid and expensive ride, but they were vindicated, especially on point 3: >Our business is in a stronger position than it's been in years >What’s energized me most since joining Dropbox is the connection people have with our brand >It gives me a lot of confidence in what’s ahead for Dropbox All corporate fluff, no actual content.
- urams 4mo ago
  Point 3 was not "'viral' or income generating" and DBX pioneered one of the most viral campaigns (give-get) and generates almost $1B a year in free cash flows? How is that vindication?
  - 1970-01-01 4mo ago
    Their roadmap doesn't exist beyond their one-hit-wonder. CEOs are stepping down because there is no future for the company unless you count acquisition by Amazon or Google or Apple, which will result in the entire company being walked to the grave.
    - urams 4mo ago
      This is really a non-answer. If your point is "Dropbox is a struggling company and therefore all criticism of it ever is fully validated no matter the timeline" then any criticism of any company ever will be validated eventually which is absurd.
arealaccount 4mo ago
Man HN was a different place back then. People sharing ideas and getting constructive (even if comically wrong) feedback. It reads more like founders and hackers helping each other. The discussions lately are more like folks armchair analyzing or speculating companies that are already incumbent tech giants. Or maybe I just click those headlines at a higher rate..
- brittlepeanut 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - supern0va 4mo ago
    And yet, it somehow has significantly better conversations than most places online. Maybe on par with reddit 10-15 years ago. It's frankly depressing how few places there are to have quality conversations, particularly for general tech.
    - ricardobayes 4mo ago
      Yes, although unfortunately the only problem with it, there's no way to contribute to older topics in a meaningful way. Due to the nature of this format not even the original author checks old comments and absolutely no chance any new conversation sparks out of it.
      - supern0va 4mo ago
        >Due to the nature of this format not even the original author checks old comments and absolutely no chance any new conversation sparks out of it. Sometimes I wonder if the format actually helps. I suspect that when you know you can pretend you didn't see a reply to your comment, you feel less likely to need to defend yourself when you realize you might be wrong. You can just close the tab and, since there was no notification, just move on without the ego hit.
    - jsbisviewtiful 4mo ago
CSMastermind 4mo ago
Wow cool to see.

The circle is complete: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

by georgel 4mo ago

The circle is complete: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

pikseladam 4mo ago

i didn't expect to laugh when i enter news today :)

ignoramous 4mo ago
Daniel Gackle thinks BrandonM's is most probably the most misunderstood comment in news.yc history. from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067281 Other users have provided the link, but my heart sinks a little every time I see this brought up, especially when the commenter is singled out by name. People forget that this is a real person. He also happens to be a great HN contributor, and has been for many years. I realize it's internet fun to point neon arrows at people seeming outrageously wrong in the past, but the truth is that people aren't reading that comment accurately and there's a huge dose of hindsight fallacy here. When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software. He meant their YC application. (Note the title of Drew's post: "My YC App"). He wasn't being a petty nitpicker—he was earnestly trying to help, and you can see in how sweetly he replied to Drew there that he genuinely wanted them to succeed. We should be so lucky for all responses to "crazy new ideas" to be that decent. This community would be healthier, and actually the current thread is a standout example of how far from true it is. The criticisms he was raising turned out to be a non-issue in hindsight, but were on point in 2007, when the idea of file synchronization was widely derided as a solution-in-search-of-a-problem which only technical users would ever care about, users who (as the comment pointed out) could already roll their own solutions. The idea had recently been publicly mocked in a famous blog post*, so it was on people's minds as the prime example of an idea only technical users would ever care about—and even YC funded Dropbox because they believed in Drew, not the idea. * described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275 More: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20brandonm&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- simoncion 4mo ago
  > People forget that this is a real person. Relatedly, people tend to forget that people who are fully aware that a real person has written a foolish and/or shortsighted comment will direct criticism at said comment. I understand that there exist people who -to oversimplify- have as their creed "Thou shall not directly say anything negative about anyone ever."... but that's a minority of people. That "soft pedal" stuff doesn't work for a notable subset of people, and -for some- generates _way_ more anxiety and stress than a frank and earnest discussion about just how stupid the stupid thing you just did is. [0] I get that some folks are Care Bears (affectionate, non-derogatory), but not only is that not the only way to be, folks who are like that freak out a not-insignificant subset of the population. > When BrandonM wrote "I have a few qualms with this app", he didn't mean the software. Perhaps. But it looks to me like an eighth or so of the top-level commenters on the OP are talking as if the thing under discussion is application software. Maybe folks consistently abbreviated "YCombinator Funding Application" as "App" and "application software" as "application" at the time, but -if so- that's not made clear to me by reading the commentary. [0] I'd also object to any characterization that BrandonM's commentary is nitpicking in any regard. Unless you know someone pretty well, you have no idea what their background is, how careful they are, or how diligently they keep their appointments with the rubber duck. Anyone who has been in this business for five, ten+ years has seen people put a lot of work into something, but fail to understand or uncover one or more basic truths that invalidate all the work they've done. Basic sanity checks are useful.

sillysaurusx 4mo ago

I was user 315, back when it was possible to determine your user number via the public url feature. Is there anything this simple now? What I miss is being able to right click on an item, click "copy public URL", paste it into the browser, and get an exact copy of that item (with nothing else; no image overlays, no ads, nothing). In the limit case you should be able to use it as a webhosting service for static files, since visiting an html page in a browser serves that file and relative links are preserved. I guess it's a losing value proposition, but it sure would be nice. It's unfortunate the original demo video was lost to time. I remember how astounding it was.

jeffbee 4mo ago
> right click on an item, click "copy public URL", paste it into the browser, and get an exact copy of that item You have described Google Drive.
- sillysaurusx 4mo ago
  Not quite; it's not a direct link to the item. Put <img src="foo.jpg"> into an html file, alongside foo.jpg. In the original Dropbox, if you opened a link to the html file, you'd see a webpage that successfully rendered foo.jpg. So you could use it as a static file host.
  - georgel 4mo ago
    It was such a nice feature too, but very easily and quickly abused.
tyler71 4mo ago
pcloud with the public folder works well. I've uploaded a few html ebooks with relative routing and it has worked fine.
- sillysaurusx 4mo ago
  Where's the public folder? I tried uploading an html file but can't get a direct link to it: https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ6NzI5ZoJ0CG3nPXqBFrHeL4gaezYprgxjV https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZ6NzI5ZoJ0CG3nPXqBF...

giancarlostoro 4mo ago

It is a darn shame, if the major OS providers didn't roll their own cloud storage, Dropbox could have been the default go-to across the board, and any other competitors that would have risen.

ADent 4mo ago
They were seemingly everywhere and lots of apps and services offered Dropbox as an option. 200 million users in 2013. Then they crippled the free plan and Apple and MS started pushing their services hard. And Dropbox seemed less ubiquitous after that.
- giancarlostoro 4mo ago
  I remember even Ubuntu had their own storage offering, which had they kept it going, I might have subscribed to to this day. Shame, would have been an easy way for Ubuntu to fund itself.

1970-01-01 4mo ago

It was quite a stupid and expensive ride, but they were vindicated, especially on point 3: >Our business is in a stronger position than it's been in years >What’s energized me most since joining Dropbox is the connection people have with our brand >It gives me a lot of confidence in what’s ahead for Dropbox All corporate fluff, no actual content.

urams 4mo ago
Point 3 was not "'viral' or income generating" and DBX pioneered one of the most viral campaigns (give-get) and generates almost $1B a year in free cash flows? How is that vindication?
- 1970-01-01 4mo ago
  Their roadmap doesn't exist beyond their one-hit-wonder. CEOs are stepping down because there is no future for the company unless you count acquisition by Amazon or Google or Apple, which will result in the entire company being walked to the grave.
  - urams 4mo ago
    This is really a non-answer. If your point is "Dropbox is a struggling company and therefore all criticism of it ever is fully validated no matter the timeline" then any criticism of any company ever will be validated eventually which is absurd.

arealaccount 4mo ago

Man HN was a different place back then. People sharing ideas and getting constructive (even if comically wrong) feedback. It reads more like founders and hackers helping each other. The discussions lately are more like folks armchair analyzing or speculating companies that are already incumbent tech giants. Or maybe I just click those headlines at a higher rate..

brittlepeanut 4mo ago
[flagged]
- supern0va 4mo ago
  And yet, it somehow has significantly better conversations than most places online. Maybe on par with reddit 10-15 years ago. It's frankly depressing how few places there are to have quality conversations, particularly for general tech.
  - ricardobayes 4mo ago
    Yes, although unfortunately the only problem with it, there's no way to contribute to older topics in a meaningful way. Due to the nature of this format not even the original author checks old comments and absolutely no chance any new conversation sparks out of it.
    - supern0va 4mo ago
      >Due to the nature of this format not even the original author checks old comments and absolutely no chance any new conversation sparks out of it. Sometimes I wonder if the format actually helps. I suspect that when you know you can pretend you didn't see a reply to your comment, you feel less likely to need to defend yourself when you realize you might be wrong. You can just close the tab and, since there was no notification, just move on without the ego hit.
  - jsbisviewtiful 4mo ago

CSMastermind 4mo ago

Wow cool to see.