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The issue we face isn't about predicting in broad-strokes technology that would be useful. It's all the minute decisions that turn the broad-strokes into somet
by mdasen 14y ago
The issue we face isn't about predicting in broad-strokes technology that would be useful. It's all the minute decisions that turn the broad-strokes into something great.
When something becomes popular, people often look for people who "predicted" it. I remember the article about how Microsoft's Nathan Myhrvold "invented" the iPhone in 1991. Except that he didn't. Microsoft made a hand-held computing OS before the iPhone and Palm Pilots existed a decade before the iPhone. In broad-strokes, they're the same thing. However, they weren't popular (and not for lack of trying). The issue wasn't the broad-strokes, but the minute details that made the iPhone (and other devices since) a joy to use. His work probably led to Windows CE, PocketPC, and Windows Mobile. He didn't invent the iPhone.
Similarly, before Dropbox we had options like XDrive from AOL, WebDAV servers, FTP, iDrive from Apple, and many others. We were awash with crappy software to store our documents on a server and access them from any computer we were on. Even Microsoft offered a slew of sub-par options that would get re-done as a Dropbox competitor as everyone started recognizing that Dropbox's model was wonderful.
Giving David Gelernter credit for predicting Dropbox is to show a lack of appreciation for the decisions that made Dropbox great - and better than the army of options that came before it that simply weren't good. Dropbox did what many before it couldn't do: create an online storage system that people love. I remember trying a bunch of services like XDrive back in the day. Transfers would fail, the transfers were synchronous (so you'd get a pause until the write had happened), things weren't cached locally so load times were poor, the mount was finicky, etc. They all satisfied the "making documents available everywhere" criteria similar to Dropbox, but they simply weren't good. Dropbox worked hard to make it good. They made lots of little design/technical decisions that make it Just Work. Many before them had tried and failed.
- garry 14y ago> Giving David Gelernter credit for predicting Dropbox is to show a lack of appreciation for the decisions that made Dropbox great - and better than the army of options that came before it that simply weren't good. I was extra impressed by was how close Gelernter was to predicting the cost and nature of such a service. It's an impressive thing to guess about $12.50, and that it would be a simple and reliable monthly service. This was an era where 1 GB hard drives cost $1000, mind you. You're right, Gelernter couldn't have known the specific details that would have made Dropbox successful. If you could know that, you would have created Dropbox.
- jacquesm 14y ago> If you could know that, you would have created Dropbox. No, you probably still wouldn't have. That's just one of many factors that allowed a number of people to create Dropbox. Besides a vision you need the right timing, addressable market, execution skills, presentation, determination and so on.
- DigitalTurk 14y ago> Similarly, before Dropbox we had options like XDrive from AOL, WebDAV servers, FTP, iDrive from Apple, and many others. We were awash with crappy software to store our documents on a server and access them from any computer we were on. Amen! Don't be too hard on third-party vendors, though. Dropbox could only have been created after file-monitoring APIs became commonplace in OS kernels. If I've got my history straight these APIs were introduced because first Apple (Sherlock, Spotlight), then the GNOME guys (starting with Eazel's Medusa), and later Microsoft (after WinFS failed) wanted to do nearly-near-time full-text indexing. I remember that in Linux land these APIs were quite contentious and it took several iterations before they got them right. I'm not sure if the ideas underlying Dropbox were _that_ unique at the time, but their execution sure was exceptionally good. Still, some companies _were_ in a position to invent Dropbox before Dropbox did. The obvious ones being Apple and Eazel, since they had products that were monitoring the entire user file system _and_ they were selling WebDav storage!
- silverlake 14y agoMany already did. Ray Ozzie started Groove Networks in 1997 to do file sharing and collaboration, later bought by MS. MS also bought a file sharing company in 2005 to power Live Mesh. That MS failed to nail this market on their own platform is kinda' pathetic. There were a billion other companies before Dropbox. I've never understood the enthusiasm for Dropbox. It's all been done before.
- evoxed 14y agoI felt the same until I started using it. As boring as it sounds, just working and being easy enough for your grandparents to use is apparently enough to get people excited. The fact that it's been done (or tried) so many times before really just makes you appreciate it more. Yeah, MS, Apple, etc. all should've had this figured out years ago and yet they didn't. So boo on them, but it's probably for the better because now we have Dropbox and you can use it on your Mac or in Windows, on your iPhone, Android, or whatever...