
Dropbox Drops Photo Galleries - intherdfield
https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/photos-page
======
jmathai
I don't think the consumer space is something Dropbox is really interested in.
I don't blame them and they probably have the numbers to back up their
decision to drop photo galleries.

I thought Carousel was going to be a big success[1] but it didn't hit the mark
like I suspected. Even if it did I doubt it would generate any meaningful
revenue for them.

Google has figured out the consumer photo space with Google Photos. Their
general approach was simply better than Carousel which was too focused on
socializing. Even there they would have been outdone by Google Photos; not to
mention the crazy AI which comes along with Google Photos.

Shameless plug for an open source EXIF-based photo workflow automation
tool[2][3] I wrote and used with Dropbox but now use with Google Drive /
Google Photos / Synology.

[3] [http://github.com/jmathai/elodie](http://github.com/jmathai/elodie)

[2] [https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-
personal...](https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal-
exif-based-photo-and-video-assistant-d92868f302ec)

[1] [https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-
carousel-e5a...](https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-
carousel-e5aad177400a)

~~~
skinnymuch
Google is pushing out new features for Google Photos at an impressive rate
through now as well. Hope that doesn't. If they didn't shut Carousel down
before, they would probably be shutting it down by now with Google Photos,
Apple Photos, Amazon, taking so much of the space up.

~~~
toomuchtodo
What happens when Google Photos shuts down?

~~~
xbmcuser
Has Gmail shut down yet. Google photos is not going to shut down. Why? Because
of data photos are data billions of megabytes of data that is being uploaded
to Google every week. I don't think Google would want to miss out on it.

~~~
dx034
Gmail makes a lot of money with paying customers and with ads for non-paying
customers. I don't think Google photos makes money on its own.

It could easily happen that Google comes up with a new product they think
should replace Google Photos so that they shut down photos to force-migrate
users. Wouldn't be the first time.

~~~
qqg3
Google photos is a good impetus to pay for upgraded storage as you'll quickly
blow past the limit.

~~~
skinnymuch
16 megapixel photos and 1080 videos are free. The amount of people who need
limits above that are pretty slim. It'll be 1-2 years before top phones go
above 16 megapixels photos. So even longer for a more than small percentage of
people to have those phones. Among those that do, including me, I'd be okay
with most photos being downsized to 16 megapixels from say 21 megapixels in 3
years. Google Photos might also increase the free limit in a few years like
they did once before. If they don't increase the free limit, I could see
people like me wanting the full size photos and videos in maybe 4-5 years.
Quite a long game for Google to be playing when they have been keen on cutting
spending in recent years and increasing profit.

I hope they do commit to Google Photos growth momentum over profit seeking,
but hard to be optimistic these days based on their recent record (and no I'm
not talking about Google Reader).

------
smrtinsert
Trust the cloud they said, it's always there they said.

In all seriousness, the need for local, speedy, transparent and ubiquitous
data redundancy is still there and if anything growing.

Consumers want a 'refrigerator' of data - be it documents, photos, etc. Buy,
set and forget.

Huge opportunity there.

~~~
superkuh
It won't work because ISP are slowly but steadily turning home internet
connections to one way flows. It starts with data caps and ends with IPv4
exhaustion and every single account behind Carrier NAT.

The type of internet where anyone could host and interact freely with other
parts of the internet are already past. People just haven't realized it. It'll
be Internet TV.

~~~
0xffff2
My solution to this is a cheap Linux VPS. It's still "in the cloud", but I
think simple VPS hosting is much less likely to go away or change drastically
than more complex cloud services. It seems like co-location would be even
better, but I have no idea how that would work for individuals looking to host
a single server. I've always assumed it would be prohibitively expensive.

~~~
dx034
Good for HN folks but no option for 99% of the population. For them, Dropbox
or Google Drive are the best and most secure option at the moment.

------
glennericksen
It looks like they are moving towards folders as an organizing principle
instead of an album abstraction. More information here:
[https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-
photos](https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos)

~~~
jonchang
This is probably a better link than the original.

~~~
Diti
Can confirm. The original link doesn't tell anything about discontinuation of
the service—at least not the French localization of that page. But that other
link does.

------
Brendinooo
Plug for SmugMug here: $40/year for, as far as I understand it, unlimited
photo and video storage. Great controls over sharing, easy to order prints,
and the iOS app is getting better all the time. Plus, you are not the product.
They just want to do photo storage well, and that's it.

Back when I was deciding on a service, I was down to Carousel and SmugMug. I
liked the idea of paying Dropbox for space that would go beyond photos and I
think Carousel was good at syncing photos from the iPhone, but I went with
SmugMug for the reasons above and have not regretted it one bit.

~~~
Veratyr
I like the idea of SmugMug but I have a few quibbles with it:

\- As far as I can tell, there's no RAW support
([http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93278](http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93278)),
admittedly this is the biggest problem for me, as all my photos are RAW.

\- Video is extremely limited (20 min/3GB) and I expect to be able to store
that too, as I treat it basically the same way I treat photos.

\- Their privacy policy is that of a content publishing platform, not a place
to store personal photos: They will access your information without your
consent and without mandatory notification if "we believe your actions are
inconsistent with the spirit or language of our user agreements or policies".
That last one is the killer.

\- Their ToS is that of a content publishing platform, not a place to store
photos: They prohibit "User Content that, in the sole judgment of SmugMug, is
objectionable, harmful or which restricts or inhibits any other person from
using or enjoying the Services, or which may expose SmugMug or its users to
any harm or liability of any nature." i.e. they can object to literally
anything I put there. I don't want to have to think about whether my backup
provider will deign to approve the photos I take.

I honestly prefer Google Photos to SmugMug. It has decent RAW support and with
a $10/month Google Apps account you can get an unenforced 1TB quota (i.e.
unlimited). And they don't police the stuff you backup, only what you share.

~~~
skinnymuch
> I honestly prefer Google Photos to SmugMug. It has decent RAW support and
> with a $10/month Google Apps account you can get an unenforced 1TB quota
> (i.e. unlimited). And they don't police the stuff you backup, only what you
> share.

So there's an official 1 TB quota, but for now it's unenforced? Presumably,
it'll be enforced at some point, no? If you're putting up raw files and/or
videos that exceed their free tier, that can add up quickly.

The TOS and PP issues are bummers. Have just added on to why I don't want to
use SmugMug.

------
727374
Annoying. I was happy paying $100/yr for Dropbox to store my photos along with
a few extra files. The photo features weren't great, but good enough for basic
browsing through galleries. I bought into the idea that if I was paying for
the storage it would be more durable and permanent than some fly-by-night
photo startup or google/amazon feature. I realize the photos aren't going
anywhere, but my use case is. Canceling my subscription to Dropbox... now.

~~~
nnutter
Dropbox only dabbled in photos. Despite my desire to support Dropbox both
because they pioneered the online synced folder and because they supported
Linux I ended up paying Google because Google Photos came out of the gate way
ahead of Dropbox’s languishing attempts at photo management/sharing and Google
Photos has kept a strong pace.

~~~
Paul-ish
How do you sync from Linux?

~~~
nnutter
For Dropbox? You install the official Linux client. For Google? There are
third-party sync products and Gnome can mount it as a network drive but I
didn’t mean to imply that I did; I don’t sync Google Drive with Linux.

~~~
SkyLinx
I use InSync for Google Drive on Linux, works great

------
mandazi
Google's version (photos.google.com) is great. I love the auto-generated
albums, animated gifs and movies. It's also very easy to share and create
group albums.

~~~
jrnichols
but a lot of us were using Dropbox because we really don't want to use
anything Google. That's the thing.

------
vaishaksuresh
Maybe I'm too old for this, but I read the title as "Dropbox _discontinues_
photo galleries"

I still can't get used to the fact that drop means release.

~~~
traek
Dropbox _is_ discontinuing photo galleries.

> The Photos page is changing on July 17, 2017, but your pictures will stay
> safe in your Dropbox account. After July 17, you’ll no longer be able to
> create or share albums on the web, or browse photos in the current timeline
> view.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
You're right! i just skimmed over the article and missed the important thing
in the box on top :)

------
8ytecoder
For those looking into alternatives but do not like the auto-downsizing or
quality reduction: Google Photos has an option to include (and upload too)
your pictures stored with Google Drive.

[https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?co=GENIE.Pl...](https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en)

------
leipert
Funny, it seems that it has been a feature since the first day. Just yesterday
I watched this [1] first demo of dropbox which notably mentioned the feature

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE)

------
post_break
What will be the next thing removed? Linux? Syncing? I mean I almost cancelled
when the public folders were shut down. We tried Dropbox for business but
after it not working out we had 50,000 files deleted at random and I had to
restore them, one at a time...

------
whyenot
Their monthly price for 1TB of storage is still less than Google Drive, but
I've become increasingly frustrated with Dropbox. If I want 2TB instead of
1TB, I have to pay 4.5 times more. I can understand that they may want to go
after business users and that I am not a core customer, but the pricing seems
out of whack and then they keep on cutting features. For me, it's time to get
off the train.

------
Spooky23
Dropbox is a strange company. They must be doing backend maintenance or
something, but they seem to take away more features and function than they
add.

I honestly don't get what they do as a company, and I love the product and
have paid for years. They hold back basic features like search and now take
away stuff like albums that freeware packages can do?

------
SimonDorio
This seems to be 'why': Will I still be able to share photos directly from my
Dropbox account to Facebook or Twitter? After July 17, you’ll no longer be
able to share photos directly from your Dropbox account to social media. You
can use shared links to share files or folders on social media.

------
Camillo
When you scroll down on the page, the logo at the top suddenly animates and
contracts horizontally. The "Dropbox" word disappears and only the box logo
remains. This serves no visible purpose and merely serves to distract the
reader.

Logo animations when scrolling were introduced in order to be able to shrink
the size of the header, to give more room for the content. But the header on
this page does not shrink at all.

The funny thing is that this page, while following the norms of flat design,
has managed to adopt skeuomorphism in the worst way. The shrinking logo had a
use on pages that shrink the header, but here is remains as a pure decoration,
with no functional purpose.

------
Axsuul
This title is misleading. Dropbox is "dropping" photo galleries in favor of
something more integrated[1]:

"The Photos page will be replaced with a new, streamlined photos experience
that looks more like our redesigned Dropbox website. You’ll be able to access
it by navigating to dropbox.com/photos or clicking on Photos in the left-hand
menu of dropbox.com."

[1] [https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-
photos](https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos)

------
livejamie
Well that makes choosing Google Drive a lot easier

~~~
eberkund
Last time I checked Google Drive's client was a few steps behind Dropbox's. Is
this still the case? I think at some point Google did not have a Linux client
and I know the UI for OSX didn't look or feel as native as Dropbox did.
However it has been a long time since I tried it out.

~~~
nnutter
Still no Linux client but Gnome can mount your Google Drive much like an NFS
or SMB mount.

------
i1856511
This sucks. I used this all the time. Does anyone know a similar, anonymous
service? I want private sharing links and I don't want a username displayed on
the gallery page like Google Photos.

------
alphabettsy
They still haven't even gotten desktop sync right. I removed it and downgraded
my account after months and months of CPU usage issues on macOS.

------
chad_c
Dropbox lost me when they closed Carousel. I don't understand why this space
is so hard.

~~~
the_common_man
Nobody wants to pay.

~~~
Spooky23
Sure they do, they just need more. Plenty of people are paying for iCloud and
Google.

Dropbox' strength is sync and sharing, but they kneecap that by double-
counting sharing capacity. I can't share a video with my wife (a non-
subscriber) without paying _again_ )

------
odisbey
Well this explains the shift to Cyberduck my company made.

