If anything, this ^^^ is how you win the long game. History will surface itself when you make assertions. Gracefully revocability scales.

At least he's not the Dropbox guy

This and the “no Wi-Fi less space than a Nomad” comments on slash dot about the iPod are my favourite examples of “you don’t get consumers” comments.

to quote u/InGoodFaith (news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29555814):

> Wouldn't also be HN without the misinterpretation of BrandonM's response. Here is dang's comment about that topic/meme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29178442

As someone who was there to witness it when it happened, that is not the impression I got at all, and I think Dang may have taken the more humble interpretation in that remark.

You don't need to have been there, though, as anyone can read the perfectly-preserved exchange even now.

Lmao Stavros we should share a laptop or something or just speak over the phone the way we run in to each other so often.

Its different reading it at the time because it factors in the context of the community at the time as well as the lived experience of what it was like at the time to be a member or participant in given discussions. With that contrast, you can then get an idea of the intent of those comments beyond just the words, as they are often (and in this case) reinterpreted through the lens of current day contexts.

Example: ask what people think of the hit TV show The Apprentice today in the present, then hop in a delorean and ask someone before the trump presidency or candidacy what they think of the show.

I guess that's true, the cultural context is different now.

You can call me anytime <3

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth...

The Dropbox guy admitted he was wrong too, but we won't let him live it down. At least we don't remember his name.

What does that mean? Can you explain?

This comment trivializing Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

I for one do not think the comments trivialized anything. I see these as inevitable questions that a leader like Drew Houston should be prepared to answer at some point. Think of it this way, would you disqualify me if you were hiring and I asked a similar question at the interview?

I think the underlying actual question for Dropbox to ponder (but perhaps not answer publicly) was "what is your moat?" without the business development language and at least for me that remains an open question.

I remember I was in college when Dropbox started and I thought Dropbox was silly to offer more storage for inviting more users. It was easy to approach people and ask them to try something in college. I think I almost maxed out my invites. I remember feeling I was taking Dropbox to the cleaners...

One activity question for HN: why do you think Dropbox continues to exist today while copycats like Barracuda Copy have failed?

> One activity question for HN: why do you think Dropbox continues to exist today while copycats like Barracuda Copy have failed?

FWIW, i've been using Dropbox since practically the day they went online, and have been a subscriber for all but the first few months of that time. They've never once failed me, never been offline when i needed them, never lost anything, they created a Linux sync client out of the box (whereas Google first claimed the would make GDrive for Linux but never did), and it's easy to manage via multiple interfaces (mainly their own web UI and https://rclone.org, which can proxy your dropbox behind an add-hoc FTP server running in your LAN).

They're extremely pricey compared to the same storage in GDrive, but Dropbox has never let me down so i'm in no hurry to drop them.

That comment is unfairly judged, taking into account how much they used AWS instead of their own solution.

"...Half-a-billion people stored files on Dropbox. Well, sort of. Really, the files were in Amazon’s cloud. .." [1]

[1] "The Epic Story of Dropbox's Exodus From the Amazon Cloud Empire"

https://www.wired.com/2016/03/epic-story-dropboxs-exodus-ama...

Why can't a company use cloud? It's not like there's Amazonbox client I could install now and get the same service. Dropbox never was about the storage itself, IMHO - it was about the ease of usage. There were enough options to get storage - cloud or non-cloud - when it came out, but none of them had the easy folder-based sync and sharing (public folder) of Dropbox.

It's not if the company uses cloud or not. It's if they are solving the hard problems or instead, outsourcing the technical challenges to their cloud provider while charging the user a non justifiable premium for the intuitive user interface :-) So it's about the eventual value add and the business case.

The challenging part is to provide the back-end. Get massive storage, with proper checksum integrity, at a cost effective value and with flawless security.

A single command (and minor variations around it):

aws s3 sync <name_source_dir> s3://<name_target_bucket>

get's you all that. It can be easily mapped to an intuitive user interface by a software development boutique in weeks.

And because that is the difficult part, it seems for the first 8 years of their history that was solved for them by AWS, according to their own reported history.

Sharing a folder or file from Dropbox is no more intuitive than using the S3 console. Looking at the very colorful history of security issues around Dropbox [1] it's certainly not safer.

So why would a user pay more for storage costs than with a cloud provider, with notoriously less security? Does a tiny layer on top one or more cloud providers justify the add-on value for the user or the current valuation of 9 Billion dollars?

[1] "Criticism of Dropbox": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Dropbox

And for what its worth, systems like minio have emerged due to that commercial innovation. AWS has made a lot of investment in that system and will earn perpetual annuities from it, but by creating a defacto protocol we now get many choices that use its API. Its interesting because AWS never was benevolent with their S3 code, they just created a novel and rigorous offering that became worthy of emulation. Dropbox really hasn't done any equivalent contribution. If anything, the open source projects that have emerged to offer self-hosted alternatives to it are more feature-complete and extensible- such as nextcloud/owncloud, pydio, syncthing, etc.

side note: I'm filled with regret for every document that I authored on Dropbox Paper. It didn't last for long, but there was a time that it was the official wiki for a company I worked at. Its not impossible to export, but never with full-fidelity.

> Sharing a folder or file from Dropbox is no more intuitive than using the S3 console.

I've not really used the S3 console but, at least on macOS, sharing a file from Dropbox is as simple as "right-click on the file in Finder, Share..." then enter an email address or create a share link from the popup. Or I can right-click and "Copy Dropbox Link" if the direct link is good enough.

Is the S3 console simpler than a right-click?

Even easier and safer, create a signed url that expires after 5 min...Send it to the user...

aws s3 presign s3://awsexamplebucket/test2.txt --expires-in 300

But now you have to know which bucket the file is in, have the AWS CLI tools installed, use Terminal, copy the URL to messages / email, etc.

How is this easier than "right-click, pick a menu option"?

(If I want an expiring Dropbox link, it's there under 'link settings' in the pop-up. Admittedly only has date granularity but still there as an option.)

Example from the console: "Setting up an Amazon S3 bucket to share files"

https://gist.github.com/pjkelly/be2cd3881e766620a411

Again, how is this easier than a single right-click in Finder? Also don't those files need to be public to create a link? You can't create a link to a non-public file which grants access either directly via the link or with a password?

...are we deliberately reenacting the original Dropbox thread here?

It usually ends up happening when the Dropbox thread comes up, it’s really interesting seeing both sides rehash the same points.

Their fundament is UX, not technology. Their technology could be whatever and users wouldn't care - the users care about syncing their files easily. Few geeks might flame about it on a tech forum, but nothing more.

Not that I like Dropbox too much. I'm going to switch to my self hosted solution. But it's certainly not as easy as using Dropbox, even as someone who uses AWS since 2012 frequently.

The median Dropbox user doesn’t know what s3 or is what ‘console’ means.