nhurj

As far as I know they both had support from their respective boards. But Rice was 'only' up for the position as board member. Eich was to be the highest public and private facing position of the company. The controversy surrounding him, unfairly or not, also affected people personally. Basically Rice only needed the trust of the rest of the board, while Eich would have had to fight to run or represent the company. Your own comment being an example of how the Internet doesn't easily forget things.

The goal of censorship isn't, usually, to control information as such. It is to enforce certain behaviors. People on Hacker News has the wrong idea about how authoritarian states work, largely based on cold war propaganda. But it's not really a discussion worth having on HN since any attempt at framing it in a way that people could understand would be accused of shilling. You will have to find some other way to get that information.

Doesn't seem like a correct characterization from my perspective. File distributions was "hot" from the early 00s until cloud everything of recent years. I think Dropbox is/was clever but not surprising, because that was the sort of things a lot of people were doing (or speculating about) at the time. Especially since most things were based on files and not web like today. The main reason it didn't develop wasn't so much lack of insight as that the Internet become increasingly hostile towards stand alone solutions, including the increase in phones and other different clients.

I definitely think that part of Dropbox bet was that the Internet wouldn't develop much in the future. A bet they aren't alone in making.