Apparently around half of the 20,000 Google employees use a version of Ubuntu ('Goobuntu'), so I wouldn't say they don't care about Ubuntu...
Meanwhile, Picasa integration was strong enough that it took years for me to figure out how to get rid of the screenshots I used on my blog 6 years ago out of the Photos app on my phone. But I wouldn't bet on Picasa being around for the long term.
Basically, I can easily see Google pivoting away from Drive being a sync client and towards some kind of always-online thing with a light local cache.
This is exactly the case for staying with Dropbox. Otherwise, your cloud provider has more leverage to lock you into their products. Dropbox is motivated to support multiple platforms.
I mean, skipping over Linux users that are a significant chunk of the market if you ask me, but lets assume for a moment that Linux home users don't pay much for their software or whatever. What about governments that have adopted Linux? What about Linux being the most popular OS for servers? What about Linux being used in the educational system, like with Raspberry Pi?
And even for yourself, lets say that you'd want to do your own backups of your Skydrive or Google Drive and so you quickly setup your own home Linux box that should synchronize your account. Surprise - you're not important enough.
This is platform lock-in, pure and simple. Microsoft is no better than Google. Don't get me started on Skype ;-)
Because for Google and Microsoft, their services are cloud storage components of their strategic platforms, and support for other platforms is, where it exists at all (e.g., Drive's desktop sync application), a way to ease migration off of those platforms and into the vendor's strategic platform, whereas for Dropbox, the file storage is the strategic product.
Of course, that's why neither Google nor Microsoft need their storage products to make profit directly for them to be valuable.
> This is platform lock-in, pure and simple.
With Drive, which has an API on which third party can build sync apps for other platforms, I don't think its lock in. Its just a matter of prioritizing a tool whose business purpose is customer acquisition for the platforms where the most potential customers are.
I know, I know, it comes integrated with Win8.1, but you can't use a local account, and your options to use SkyDrive with a local account are just nasty workarounds:
http://www.ghacks.net/2013/11/09/access-skydrive-windows-8-1...
On the other hand your worry, while justified, does not apply to Google Drive. Google Drive is now an integral part of:
Yes, they probably don't make much money directly from neither of them, but these represent Google's platform, or lets say Google's own Windows if you will. It's their way of achieving lock-in and protecting against competition that may harm them, as otherwise Google's Search engine which drives the real money from advertising - cannot achieve lock-in on its own. And each of those products need cloud storage and cloud storage is becoming the norm. Microsoft has SkyDrive, integrated with Windows and WinPhone. Apple has iCloud, integrated with OS X and with iOS. Clearly you can see a pattern.With Google Cloud the only thing I don't trust long term is their pricing - they have a history of releasing cheap or free stuff, earn popularity, earn users, after which they realize that their costs are greater than their earnings and raise those prices. Examples: Google App Engine and Google Apps.
In regards to DropBox, I support them but they really do need to reduce the pricing for those paid accounts. Pretty soon I'll need more than 100 GB and paying $19.99 per month for 200 GB is a little too expensive already, given that after a while I'll need more than 200 GB and then for 500 GB I'll need to pay $50 / month and that's way too much, when Google's 1 TB offer is for $10 / month and would last me for 2-3 years at least.