Is there any reason, 10 years after release, why I should be using Dropbox instead of my own network attached storage? Or does their product really just boil down to "storage as-a-service, as a service"?

In the case of Dropbox, I would say HN was directionally correct that the software would be commoditized, but I would say that the avg. commenter then would not be able to predict the IPO.

There is little need to pay separate for Dropbox now that it is in Google Suite/Workspace and Microsoft Office 365.

But for a few years they were the only ones.

Yes, there are many other ways this could have been done, but it was built to be administered by non-technical people who at least understood how to upload files to Dropbox and they have access to all of Dropbox's file management tools. A massive chunk of functionality that we didn't have to build out!

Stagnating!

Seriously, which major functionality you’d want to add to your, idk, snow brush, duct tape, thermometer?

Or does their product really just boil down to "storage as-a-service, as a service"?

I’m not using cloud storage/sync, but if I did, that would be an exact formula for choosing a product. I mean I’d want to put files in a dir (v-drive?) and that’s it. And when the time comes, Dropbox will be first, because it’s basically synonymous to it, unless price-prohibitive. Am I missing something here?

Maybe features you talked about are sharing, social-something, smartphone integration, etc. Genuinely not sure.

I was rooting for cryptocurrency 7 years ago, when it wasn't sold as "digital gold" or whatever asinine label people give it nowadays. I'll eat the crow and admit I was wrong to not anticipate the abuse of an open, distributed system. The landscape of cryptocurrency today is an irrecoverable mess, evidenced by the slipping valuation and hemorrhaging trade volume.

The Stock Market is too complicated for most people but it is pretty safe for the average citizen to participate in ( and you have many levels of "participation" according to you expertise, budget and inclination).

The other 10% is the fact that securing digital data is not as easy to do as physical money. However this is where hardware wallets come in, and the user experience for hardware wallets has improved considerably over the last half decade. They just need to be more widely deployed.

There's simply no momentum left in cryptocurrency as a software movement. An economy cannot live on HODLers and hustlers alone.

What seems clear is that when you confound speculative utopian societal changes with the underworld's dream currency, crazy things happen.

The market has grown in size. The value of crypto companies and market caps today is not literally the sum of the value of crypto companies and market caps 10 years ago. Ergo, not zero-sum. This is purely a mathematical statement about industry financials, not a moral judgement about abstract "value" in terms of societal contribution.

Right, it’s actually a negative sum game because the network takes resources to secure. Thanks for pointing that out.

Being surprised that there is a pushback against such a technology seems inappropriate or foolish.

Does Uber or Airbnb use 100,000x more resources per transaction than the standard alternative?

People made a lot of predictions about what the impact of crypto currency or blockchains generally would be. Few of those seem to have come to pass.

* Musk would somehow weasel his way out of the contract

* Musk would demonstrate that Twitter had lied to the SEC about bot numbers

* Musk would embrace a policy of free speech absolutism (within legal limitations) upon taking over

None of which came to pass.

Also a great budget to bury black projects...

I look at Finland as a country that takes defense seriously and expects to fight hard with exceptionally degraded facilities and logistical support. They chose the F-35 vs. the Super Hornet+Growler, Gripen+GlobalEye & Rafale means something. At a minimum they think the marginal cost of the aircraft is worth the supply chain it offers.

I strongly suspect that the aircraft is a far more capable electronic warfare platform than is generally understood. A very good local defense blog covered the process extensively and is well worth spending time with - https://corporalfrisk.com/2021/12/11/f-35a-is-hx-the-winner-...

I'd also have to disagree with your "everyone hated on Dropbox"; you can read the original thread at [1], many people said "wow, great!" That's actually the majority of the comments, and BrandonM's comments (which is what people usually refer to) is a lot more friendly and nuanced than "hating on the idea". After Drew's response, BrandonM's response can essentially be summarized as "right, I see how this would be useful".

Like I said: HN is lots of different people who disagree on essentially everything.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

One example is the consistent love for Rust, which makes me think it's probably a technology worth adopting (if it fits the project).

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081097

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081397

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081519

The value of censorship resistant low fee fixed supply digital money seemed to fly over the heads of people that many would expect to see the potential.

It still amazes me to this day but as they say, "you will buy bitcoin at the price you deserve".