
How I Built It: Dropbox - maxprogram
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577279393264468930.html
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samstave
Dear Dropbox,

How I love thee, though I have some issues I would hope you can see.

I am a paying customer. I have used dropbox for a time, though now I have been
using it on a team - but not as a paid team.

We are in a grey area - between really needing to pay for a much more
expensive team account and being crippled by the free account.

Here is my issue: Matrixed relationships of shared folders.

If I, a paid user, have 50GB of space, and I create several folders, 1,2 & 3 -
and I share them with unpaid users A, B, C, D, E, & F -- my paid space
consumes their unpaid space.

So, if I share folder 1 with users A B and C who all have 2GB of space - and I
add 3GB into that folder (I have 50 remember) it breaks their account (Sync
stops).

I would request the following: ONLY folders that YOU share out/create should
eat your quota.

I know this is not a simple request, or easy -- but I think that when one
joins a folder I share, it should not affect their quota.

If this is not feasible, we need more options.

I am willing to pay, but the current model is half-broken.

How about letting me create a paid for share that is communal, which is
outside my free 2GB.

So, we pay $20/month for 100GB - It is a space that is associated with
multiple users. I still have my 2GB "personal" storage, but I have one shared
folder that is 100GB that we all share.

the shared folder allows all users to place stuff in there, but it does not
eat away at their local quota.

Let me have ~5 users on that $20/month share. Each additional user is ~$3 per
month...

The spectrum as it stands doesn't quite fit. Can we come up with other
options?

Thanks

~~~
ctide
Doesn't work. People would just create dummy accounts with 2GB folders, share
them with themselves, and have infinite storage.

If they offered a 100GB plan for $20 / month, it would destroy their $125 /
year / person plan since I would imagine that in almost all cases that's a
much cheaper arrangement for teams.

That's why the current solution is such a disaster. The alternatives are
either too easily gamed or they rape Dropbox's revenue.

~~~
sleet
Or this could only be for paid customers.

i.e. a folder shared by a paid customer does not consume space for anyone who
joins it however a folder shared by a free customer does.

~~~
samstave
Thats exactly what I am asking. I am paying for 50GB, I have shared out
folders from my source to free users. If I put 2GB in those folders, all the
free users stop syncing.

I think this is wrong.

------
vlad
Interestingly enough, Dropbox was launched here on Hacker News with a video to
"throw away your usb drive".

Since I had been writing "ad copy" for many years for my own shareware app at
the time, and liked to encourage posters rather than criticize (as I knew how
hard it could be to launch something), I instead posted a list of benefits in
a way a person 30-70 years old could understand.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863>

I've been honored to watch as subsequent Dropbox videos had become better at
explaining the benefits to real people, with wording similar to mine, as well
as surprised to see screen shots of that page with my username on it in
presentations done by Drew Houston and Adam Smith at YC Startup School or MIT
Startup Bootcamp.

I had the pleasure of meeting Drew after YC Startup School 2007, when he was
still looking for a partner, at the apartment where the Xobni founders lived.
I got a good overview of what he was building but didn't have time to show him
what I was working on. A few people left to pick up burgers while I was
talking with Drew.

My next encounter with Drew was also the day after Startup School, this time
in 2011. It was surreal to sit around a table with Drew and visitors to
Dropbox Headquarters in large office in downtown San Francisco, joining the
people peppering him with questions about taking Dropbox. Again, people ate,
but (mini) burgers were catered, and hundreds of them. :)

Edit:

Also, when I interned at Justin.tv (I went back to college to complete a B.S.
Computer Science and a B.S. Mathematics), I created a console app (in Python)
for broadcasters that could start with their JTV credentials and channel name
and modify the packets of the video stream playing on VLC in real-time in
multiple ways. Arash Ferdowsi was helpful in putting me in touch with the
person at Dropbox responsible for client-side builds for some tips on building
executables of my app for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

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cop359
Out of curiosity, does anyone have any info on if Dropbox is profitable?

I personally don't know anyone who actually pays for more space. Most people
that use it are not tech savy and I don't think would take the leap to start
paying monthly for virtual space. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say maybe 2% of
users pay; but that's purely on gut feeling.

I feel like their business model is like Youtube: ie. provide massive amounts
of storage and make very little money per GB stored (last I heard Google isn't
making much money off of that). It's the "new" traffic + users = success. Not
profits - costs = success.

The fact that they didn't sell themselves to Apple seems to suggest that they
have higher hopes... Or maybe they're waiting out for a higher bid.

~~~
sskates
Yes, Dropbox is profitable. I believe their numbers are particularly high for
a freemium model, more than 2%.

They've said quite a bit that don't plan on getting acquired, all signs point
to them going public.

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anamax
"How we've scaled Dropbox" by Kevin Modzelewski
<http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/120222.html>

The video for the talk is on [http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/winter-
schedule-20112012...](http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/winter-
schedule-20112012.html) .

------
mthreat
Most interesting answer, in my opinion:

"Mr. Ferdowsi: The problem that we're trying to solve is a problem that only
an independent company can solve. We want to let you use a Mac, or Windows PC,
or iPad, or Android, without having to think about any of the technical
details. It isn't a problem any of those larger companies is going to be as
inclined to solve in the same way we are."

~~~
18pfsmt
The other companies I am familiar with that are trying to solve the same
problems are the consumer NAS OEMs like QNAP, Synology, and Netgear. I have
2TB of RAID storage I paid $500 for 2 years ago. My solution involves using a
VPN, but I still find it quite usable and it also addresses my privacy
concerns.

