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The problem I see is dropbox as a service becoming a commodity as competition in the sector ramps up. Apple is making a big push on cloud with airdrop and iclo
by brador 13y ago
The problem I see is dropbox as a service becoming a commodity as competition in the sector ramps up. Apple is making a big push on cloud with airdrop and icloud, Tencent is offering 10tb storage.
It's heating up and it's gonna be hard to maintain a viable USP.
- w1ntermute 13y agoI don't think this is true at all. There are huge network effects because of folder sharing. I've gotten at least a dozen people to sign up for Dropbox over the years this way. It was tough at first, but the adoption rate is sufficiently high now that in a group of 5, there may be only one person who hasn't got an account already. And when they're the odd one out, the peer pressure to sign up is so great that it forces even the latest of late adopters to give in. Apple is irrelevant because they're not cross platform, and no one will trust their data to a Chinese company, particularly the businesses that actually pay for Dropbox.
- franstereo 13y agoI agree there are big network effects to sharing folders and that is a big push to sign up. Paying is a different story however. If you are a casual non-business user, sharing photos or the occasional document (e.g., Grandparent use case) then even the annoying space restrictions won't move you to pay.
- netcan 13y agoIMO the underlying assumption of Dropbox's competitiveness is that it is not a commodity. 1GB with the right user experience is worth more than more with a worse UX. Commodity would imply that it's all about price per gb. So far, I think that assumption has been right.
- foobarqux 13y agoBut how hard is it to tell an engineering team to just copy Dropbox? And then offer a lower price point or better OS integration?
- prostoalex 13y agoFor large photo transfers I've convinced my family members to use BitTorrent Sync. Dropbox's use case might fit corporate use-case, but on the consumer side you rarely need XXX GB of high-availability storage for entire year - you need it for a short period of time, and it kinda stays unused most of the other time.