HN Explorer

Ask HN: Where is Dropbox headed?

15 points by untilHellbanned ↗ HN
Long-time Dropbox user here. I feel like it's time is starting to get short. Now that I'm getting emails more frequently from them, which feels unlike them, I feel like their desperation is setting in. The integrations with Google Drive, particularly Google Docs, both of which seem to be getting better all the time, make it hard to compete. Dropbox's products seem stagnant and not impressive (Carousel - tried to like it for months but its syncing was terrible). This is weird considering their frequently mentioned technical prowess. I wonder if hiring all the MIT/Stanford/Ivy league grads they do, causes the same problem we see in professional sports where stats don't buy championships. What's everyone's thoughts on Dropbox's trajectory?

9 comments

[ 7.0 ms ] story [ 42.0 ms ] thread
mastermojo
Dropbox's service has always been something that an engineer who wanted to, could implement with a server and an rsync alias. Their company is not built on the same technical challenges that companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft have. Their success comes from creating and (relentlessly) iterating on personal cloud storage solution for the average computer user.

Cloud storage has been (sort of) commoditized. By that I mean it's easily obtainable from a variety of different sources (Google, Microsoft etc). It's not immediately obvious which service is "better". However Dropbox does have strong brand awareness going for them. People in Tech frequently underestimate the value of an established brand.

My personal opinion is that Dropbox will continue to do well in revenue for small sized businesses and sole proprietors. However, it's medium/large business solutions do not have as strong of a reputation (things like access control are relatively new features, I had to check if it even existed). As long as they stay first-to-mind when people talk about personal cloud storage, they will do okay.

The difference between jumping from 1-10 billion to a 10-100 billion will be how well they execute on b2b solutions.

joshstrange
It's a little more than just rsync. There's file history, desktop and mobile apps with nice (enough) GUI's, selective sync/offline-ing, and more. But past that I agree with you. Google Drive is looking better and better as I exclusively use google drive for all documents. Crap like not being able to view basic text files online in drive is annoying but I rarely use dropbox's web interface so it might not be an issue...
27182818284
From time to time, I think about the same thing. I'm not convinced they shouldn't have taken the 9-digit offer from Apple.

Although I was an evangelist and used it frequently (on the must-install list of apps) now I often forget that I have it. Like just now, I had forgotten about it until seeing your post. I think it is installed on my home machine somewhere.

And wow does it feel like Box eliminated them in enterprise. I mean my experiences are anecdotal, but when I see 30,000-members organizations handing out Box accounts by default to new employees (and it syncs and ties into their company's CAS for authentication) it makes you think, "Dropbox who?" So I really hope they dominate the persona-user space.

vDesktop
I can tell you where I think Dropbox is going.

I believe that the time of cloud providers like Dropbox raking in profits, whilst accepting absolutely none of the liability is coming to an end.

Right now Dropbox has tens of millions of its customers who entrust some of their most valuable personal and business files to a cloud provider who does not give them an SLA and who fails to properly insure their customers against data loss, downtime or cyber attack.

It is one of the dirtiest secrets of cloud and something nobody talks about ever. I would argue that Dropbox is an accident waiting to happen and their customers will be left holding the can. Only a matter of time I believe.

vDesktop
Sorry I had also meant to say that Dropbox is going to start providing a basic SLA and some form of insurance coverage for their users, they have no other choice and know that if their customers wake up to the fact that they are holding the can, there will be a huge fallout.

Expect them to get ahead of this.

smpetrey
I completely agree. Here's my 2 cents.

A few buddies of mine back in 2009 were joking around that Dropbox would undoubtedly launch an email service. Then they bought MailBox. Personally, I think it's only a matter of time that a entry-level bundle will become available under the guise of a free email service.

Users get free email address, and access to MailBox + 2 GB storage. The email is just bait. I think at the point the `*@dropbox.com` emails become available, they would be wise to implement at the very least a basic SLA.

reiichiroh
My 50GB Samsung Galaxy promo and years of Dropbox Pro are expiring within 60 days. I think I'm finally moving to the OneDrive space that comes with my Office365 subscription.
mark_l_watson
A good move, I think. The sync on my Macs, Windows laptop, android phone, and iPad all work fine. Also for $99/year everyone in my family gets 1 gig of cloud storage, web browser versions of all the Office apps (really nice for Linux laptops) and if you want installabe Office apps. I wish they had a Linux sync client however.
1arity
the free tier is killing them. the strategy to get more free tier base to lead to more paying requires getting deeper with vc. the photos apps are a distraction and as other posts say smell of desparation. the future of storage is one monolithic platform that stores everything, including apps you havent yet purchased, and costs something. all your device will be imaged here making the hardware disposable. because their culture and their competition strategy are so tied to free, it is unlikely they will pivot away from this. they are now only an acquisition target for a company that can build a for pay product on dropbox. yet they seem to be long haulers so they will lumber on until something comes along to put them out of their misery. the product they achieved really works, just the business model didnt.

the only way out i see is for them to build another smartphone os and a device and market the hell out of it so their "db cloud storage" and "db app store" become indispensible rather than one of many free commodities.