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Can someone tell me why this is harder to do on desktop computers?

Because dropbox on phones (iOS atleast) has had exactly this forever, and it makes me wonder about the technical differences.

- I see all the files, and can open any of them at will.

- They don't take up space on my iphone unless cached

- I can select files that i want to be available offline

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The phone OSes don't allow arbitrary views to the file system. Every file you open from your Dropbox on mobile, you open through the Dropbox app which will then copy the downloaded file over to the opening application.

Dropbox has full control over which files it downloads and which files it needs to keep around.

On the desktop, the file manager and every single application (by virtue of their file open dialog) get access to any file at any time. You are supposed to be able to open any file in your Dropbox without going through a dedicated Dropbox app.

Dropbox uses phone APIs that were designed to do exactly this. There are not "cloud storage" APIs that simulate a file system in desktop OSes. So Dropbox had to implement the syncing logic. And they also, now, have to implement the cloud file system logic to get this new feature.

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