5 ms·

I like dropbox a lot, but have two problems. The major one is that their price point just seems too high. $99 a year just isn't a price that I'm willing to pay

by ja27 18y ago

I like dropbox a lot, but have two problems. The major one is that their price point just seems too high. $99 a year just isn't a price that I'm willing to pay without seriously considering the value I'm getting. (Then when I consider the value, $99 can buy a pretty big portable hard drive or flash drive. So I buy the drives and just use the free 2 gig Dropbox for synchronizing smaller files.) On the other hand, I had no problem paying $30/year for Flickr Pro. That's an easy price point, even for a cheap bastard like me. The minor one is that they don't seem to own dropbox.com. I don't know how that didn't get done before settling on the name, but they gotta get that cleared up.

catch23 18y ago
> The minor one is that they don't seem to own dropbox.com. I don't know how that didn't get done before settling on the name, but they gotta get that cleared up. Would you prefer them to use a name like droppboxx or drropbox instead? Most likely some domain squatter sat on dropbox.com and demanded 3 million for the name. They could have picked a completely different name, but dropbox is nice and simple, and the correct site comes up on google which is what most people use anyway.
- netsp 18y ago
  Seems like a bit of an issue costing money & efforts. They are running ads "Dropbox (Official Site)" on both Google Search (maybe no longer necessary) & the sponsored listing on the actual site.
rms 18y ago
They'll buy it eventually, facebook used to be called thefacebook (which almost seems ridiculous now).
- antidaily 18y ago
  http://web.archive.org/web/20040212031928/http://www.thefacebook.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040212031928/http://www.theface...
  - EvilTrout 18y ago
    Mind. Blown.
- axod 18y ago
  Question is, how much will it cost. In terms of money, and hassle. Personally I would have just chosen a name that isn't already taken.
- albertni 18y ago
  Let's not forget our old friend "getfirefox.com" =)
antidaily 18y ago
I do the same - I have a 500gb little dell drive that I use with Time Machine. And I use Dropbox for day-to-day project files.
frossie 18y ago
Yeah, it's not the $99 that is the problem, it is that it buys you 50GB. The most valuable digital data I have is baby/kid photos, video etc. They are truly irreplaceable (to me, anyway), and I wouldn't mind some convenient way to do off-site backup rather than lugging rsynced disks around, but 50GB is not enough to back it up. As for syncing and sharing project files, that is what the git repository is for. But quite obviously there is a market for what they sell. I'm just not in that market. Not until I can get half a TB for my $99, anyway.
- mkuhn 18y ago
  For me a 10 gig account for less money, e.g. $39, would be perfect, I only sync documents but am reaching my limit now, and $99 is somewhat a lot especially because I don't need the offered 50 GB... For people with the need for more storage there is a 100 GB plan I think...
- ja27 18y ago
  I have the same problem. I have almost 100 gigs of photos which are the majority of my backup needs. Flickr's been an somewhat easy way to back them up and share them at the same time. But I have growing frustration with Flickr because I'm really using it for three different purposes now: backing up all my photos, sharing family snapshots with friends and family, and sharing more artsy photography with mostly strangers (which is really Flickr's sweet spot). Using Flickr for backup is incredibly annoying and iffy because their uploaders are so fragile and downloading the entire collection depends on third-party software that Flickr could break or disable at any moment. I'd love to move my photo backups off of Flickr and am close to using just some rotating USB hard drives, but I'd much rather have something automated. Dropbox could definitely have my business there and be price competitive if they offered say 250 gigs for under $100 a year. Backing up my photos should be a good profit for them over time, because once I get past the initial backup, I really only upload a gig or two a month and rarely download. Unlike my other documents, I don't need my photo backup replicated between my different computers running Dropbox. Sharing photos with friends and family is something that Dropbox could be good at or at least acceptable. The Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook uploaders all suck compared to the ease of Dropbox. If they added some better privacy settings, RSS feeds, and some more viewing/downloading options, they could be player in the photo sharing space.
scorpion032 18y ago
Even now, basecamp uses basecamphq for the url. With google toolbar installed, all it takes is to enter - drop box - on the address bar, anyway!

by ja27 18y ago

catch23 18y ago

> The minor one is that they don't seem to own dropbox.com. I don't know how that didn't get done before settling on the name, but they gotta get that cleared up. Would you prefer them to use a name like droppboxx or drropbox instead? Most likely some domain squatter sat on dropbox.com and demanded 3 million for the name. They could have picked a completely different name, but dropbox is nice and simple, and the correct site comes up on google which is what most people use anyway.

netsp 18y ago
Seems like a bit of an issue costing money & efforts. They are running ads "Dropbox (Official Site)" on both Google Search (maybe no longer necessary) & the sponsored listing on the actual site.

rms 18y ago

They'll buy it eventually, facebook used to be called thefacebook (which almost seems ridiculous now).

antidaily 18y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/20040212031928/http://www.thefacebook.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040212031928/http://www.theface...
- EvilTrout 18y ago
  Mind. Blown.
axod 18y ago
Question is, how much will it cost. In terms of money, and hassle. Personally I would have just chosen a name that isn't already taken.
albertni 18y ago
Let's not forget our old friend "getfirefox.com" =)

antidaily 18y ago

I do the same - I have a 500gb little dell drive that I use with Time Machine. And I use Dropbox for day-to-day project files.

frossie 18y ago

Yeah, it's not the $99 that is the problem, it is that it buys you 50GB. The most valuable digital data I have is baby/kid photos, video etc. They are truly irreplaceable (to me, anyway), and I wouldn't mind some convenient way to do off-site backup rather than lugging rsynced disks around, but 50GB is not enough to back it up. As for syncing and sharing project files, that is what the git repository is for. But quite obviously there is a market for what they sell. I'm just not in that market. Not until I can get half a TB for my $99, anyway.

mkuhn 18y ago
For me a 10 gig account for less money, e.g. $39, would be perfect, I only sync documents but am reaching my limit now, and $99 is somewhat a lot especially because I don't need the offered 50 GB... For people with the need for more storage there is a 100 GB plan I think...
ja27 18y ago
I have the same problem. I have almost 100 gigs of photos which are the majority of my backup needs. Flickr's been an somewhat easy way to back them up and share them at the same time. But I have growing frustration with Flickr because I'm really using it for three different purposes now: backing up all my photos, sharing family snapshots with friends and family, and sharing more artsy photography with mostly strangers (which is really Flickr's sweet spot). Using Flickr for backup is incredibly annoying and iffy because their uploaders are so fragile and downloading the entire collection depends on third-party software that Flickr could break or disable at any moment. I'd love to move my photo backups off of Flickr and am close to using just some rotating USB hard drives, but I'd much rather have something automated. Dropbox could definitely have my business there and be price competitive if they offered say 250 gigs for under $100 a year. Backing up my photos should be a good profit for them over time, because once I get past the initial backup, I really only upload a gig or two a month and rarely download. Unlike my other documents, I don't need my photo backup replicated between my different computers running Dropbox. Sharing photos with friends and family is something that Dropbox could be good at or at least acceptable. The Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook uploaders all suck compared to the ease of Dropbox. If they added some better privacy settings, RSS feeds, and some more viewing/downloading options, they could be player in the photo sharing space.

scorpion032 18y ago

Even now, basecamp uses basecamphq for the url. With google toolbar installed, all it takes is to enter - drop box - on the address bar, anyway!