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A comment on The software engineering lifecycle: How we built the new Dropbox Plus. Parent comment

Re:The software engineering lifecycle: How we built the new ... by Ericson2314 on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @01:45PM (#24495151)
Even when it was a nice "do one simple thing" company, that thing was a bit of a square peg. The fact is that the hierarchical file system is a silly way of structuring data that doesn't meat people's needs.

I've never understood how Dropbox could be a sustainable business. All the walled gardens have legitimate UX and anti-competative / anti-interopt reasons to get away from files, and the actual core service Dropbox provides is quite commoditized.

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Re:The software engineering lifecycle: How we built the new ... by mattgerstman on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @01:48PM (#24495195)
Yep this is it. We need to provide more than just storage to succeed in the marketplace.
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Re:The software engineering lifecycle: How we built the new ... by Ericson2314 on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:55PM (#24496116)
To be clear, I'm saying your in trouble either way:

- Just storage: it's commoditization so you have your own hardware and compete at that level

- Other stuff: Now you are alt GSuite. Google needs competition, not know you are fighting and N front war and your old users may not care.

Now VC usually tries to avoid competing head-on with FAANG, and the current situation was definitely inevitable, so quite confused why Dropbox got funded in the first place.

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Re:The software engineering lifecycle: How we built the new ... by reducesuffering on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @07:08PM (#24499114)
> so quite confused why Dropbox got funded in the first place

Because they're still worth 8 billion dollars now?

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