
Dropbox CTO Resigns - tpw212
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467623/000146762319000021/a10219form8-k.htm
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ProfessorLayton
Dropbox has slowly but surely gone from a product I enjoyed and recommended to
one that I actively dislike using. I find it pretty astonishing that such a
mature product:

\- Is slow

\- Demolishes my MBP's battery

\- Has not gotten simpler to use

And worst of all, it is completely out of line with what their competition are
charging. They want $12.50-15/mo for their most basic plan when their
competition is charging $0-10 for their core feature set.

I wish them well, but once iCloud launches file sharing I'm 100% done with
them.

~~~
fortran77
_For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite
trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and
then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP
account could be accessed through built-in software_

In all seriousness, have you looked at OneDrive + Office365?

For $70/year you get 1 TB of storage, a client that works on all platforms,
plus Microsoft Office 365 (online) and two licences for the desktop install of
Microsoft Office plus the Office apps for iOS/Android. It's a great deal and
works well.

~~~
tzs
What if you want more than 1 TB?

I've not found any option to purchase more storage for a non-business
Office365 account.

~~~
scarface74
Office 365 is $99 a year for 6 users each with 1TB. You can create another
user and share their 1TB with your primary account.

It doesn’t work like DropBox, the shared space is added to yours. With
Dropbox, any shared folders are subtracted from your allocated space.

------
ComputerGuru
Reminder that DropBox now uses a background web server instead of a native
interface for their bare minimum client.

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toxik
Famously, Steve Jobs once called Dropbox “a feature, not a product.”

~~~
damnyou
Maybe "products" are actually bad when they lock you into an ecosystem like
the company Steve Jobs headed does.

~~~
gnicholas
I typically hear the categories as feature, product, platform (aka ecosystem).
Apple is a platform/ecosystem. Dropbox is a feature/product, but definitely
not a platform.

In SV, "just a feature" has a derogatory connotation, sort of like "lifestyle
business". It causes people who run feature companies to try to get away from
this characterization – even if it means stretching their business into
something that it cannot easily become. This is especially true for features
that have no moat, and which would therefore be Sherlocked [1] by companies
like Apple.

1: [https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-
co...](https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-company-
sherlocks-an-app/)

~~~
damnyou
Yeah, you've accurately explained how Silicon Valley culture can ruin
companies that would be completely sustainable otherwise. Thanks!

~~~
gnicholas
For the record, I think both of these derogatory connotations are crap, and I
run a "feature" startup myself. Fortunately, we don't need venture investment
since we're running breakeven. Even with issued patents and paid licensees,
it's nigh impossible to find VCs interested in a feature company.

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dannylandau
Dropbox is still an insanely awesome product, and one of the few that I
actually pay for and use on a daily basis -- it is a lifeline for my business!

~~~
roter
I would have said the same thing in 2010 when I first started my business and
needed file sharing/syncing in a small team. Everything just worked on Linux &
Windows. Then they started tweaking everything, adding useless features, and
it seems to be more of a hassle every year. But I'm still using it but if a
cheaper, more lightweight service was offered, I'd probably switch.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Nextcloud? A NAS device? Google Drive? Practically all of these are cheaper
and have the same or better usefulness. There's actually a ton of storage
options out there.

~~~
javagram
Nextcloud and a NAS would both qualify as a hassle, I think. They have to be
admin’d. After all NAS and FTP already existed when Dropbox launched.

Google drive is similar to Dropbox.

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frereubu
Although I'm going off Dropbox because of their attempts to become a
"platform" I think people are forgetting a bit of what file syncing was like
before Dropbox and how far behind the competition still are (at least in my
view). Block-level syncing (so entire files aren't transferred with each small
change) and rock-solid reliability is a pretty compelling combination for me.
This is particularly so given that their prices are a drop in the ocean as a
percentage of total expenses.

I keep trying other services (they'd need to be hosted by someone else - I
don't want the added headaches of managing my own setup), but none have come
close yet.

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ram_rar
Dropbox has a tough road ahead. With Google Drive, Microsoft Word cloud suite
and Box, its definitely getting tough to survive by just doing B2C. With their
recent acquisitions they'll probably pivot to DocuSign like model. But they
are definitely losing their niche.

~~~
notyourday
B2C is the place to be - it is a niche where an excellent product is going to
continue to earn excellent money. Continue to reiterate and continue to
improve the product, dont overspend on infrastructure and dont rent super
expensive office space in the most expensive cities in the world.

Enterprise is where SaaS companies go to die because they think that
Microsofts of the world are just going to let them have the multi million
dollar deals. That's a delusion.

~~~
encoderer
I struggle to connect this to market facts. What big consumer SaaS tools
exist? You could argue that Spotify and Netflix count. I disagree, but fine.
You have networks like Tinder. You have a few tools companies like Carbonite,
Dropbox, 1Password. These are niche.

In the enterprise... Slack, Twilio, Stripe, Okta, Qualtrics, Datadog, Zoom, I
feel like I could name 10 more easily.

Enterprise is where SaaS companies get paid. Slack makes like half their
revenue from 500 companies.

~~~
notyourday
> You have a few tools companies like Carbonite, Dropbox, 1Password. These are
> niche.

SmugMug. Carbonite. Mailchimp. Backblaze. It is quite literally, pick a niche
and there's a company making money servicing that niche. Is it a billion
dollar company? Nope. Will it ever be if it sticks to doing whatever the
product that it had? Who knows. But are they going to lose money on
"enterprise" while cannibalizing its B2C business? Pretty much guaranteed.

Remember Borland? The one that created a market for $100 compilers it sold
millions copies? It decided to replace those millions of customers paying $100
with a hundred customers paying a million? That was a total reversal of
fortunes.

> Enterprise is where SaaS companies get paid. Slack makes like half their
> revenue from 500 companies.

And it still cannot make money.

------
heyyyouu
[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dropbox-cto-departs-as-
sha...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dropbox-cto-departs-as-shares-
drop-2019-10-02)

------
yosefzeev
It means those guys weren't innovative enough to keep making them money in
some way that they wished they would.

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jbyers
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21141513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21141513)
links to the Dropbox Blog post
([https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/company/thank-you-quentin--
a...](https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/company/thank-you-quentin--and-welcome-
tim-and-bharat))

------
MiscIdeaMaker99
Hmm. What's interesting about it?

~~~
desine
Dropbox recently had some backlash, mostly due to them updating their OSX
software that installed a new file manager without the user's explicit
permission.

Not sure if it's related, but they've had some issues with their tech stack
lately

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477958)

~~~
dwoozle
Do you genuinely think the Dropbox CTO resigned because of some complaints
about an app dialog.

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cat199
Not the OP, but 'app dialogs' and their utility/uselessness are symptomatic of
the underlying philosophy and business culture which made them a 'requirement'
\- so if the app dialog is undesirable, it carries implications about the
internal environment in which it was developed, which may prompt someone to
leave.

alternately: this was the person pushing the undesirable things, and other
people pushed that person out as 'bad news', or, this person couldn't push
more 'bad things' through effectively enough to his own liking and so left.

~~~
jeremyjh
alternately: no relationship at all and this whole thread is just people
dishing on their pet-peeves with the product.

~~~
esoterae
Where there's smoke, there's fire

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rblion
What happened?

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mjhagen
They screwed up a perfect piece of software.

~~~
jarfil
More like competition, including open source solutions, has reached a point
where Dropbox is becoming obsolete.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I don’t understand why one would expect to be able to compete with iCloud,
google drive, one drive. They have so much cash to burn.

~~~
scarface74
Have you ever known Apple to “burn cash”? They have this crazy idea that
products should be sold at a profit.

~~~
lotsofpulp
As in, whatever you can do, they can do better, since they are able to spend
so much more.

~~~
scarface74
It’s not they can do it “better”. They can do it “good enough” so that most
people aren’t willing to use a smaller vendor and where the value add is not
enough to have a sustainable business - see Dropbox, Spotify, Etc.

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jake_morrison
The most interesting use case for Dropbox is enabling cross-app workflows on
iPad. Most apps support the Dropbox APIs now. Apple needs to get its shit
together and make iCloud the back end. They can mandate that apps support
their APIs, and then iCloud gets more revenue.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Smart idea considering they did the same with “Login with Apple ID”.

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auslander
discovering how Dropbox hacks your mac

[https://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-
dropb...](https://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-dropbox-
hacks-your-mac/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12463338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12463338)

