The first comment on that thread is a typical funny HN comment: “if you’re a Linux user and do x, y, z and connect the flux capacitor to the warp drive you can emulate Dropbox no problem”
"Congrats Dropbox" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16660140
BrandonM: It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"!
I like to think that I've gained a lot of perspective over the last 11 years; it's pretty clear to me that point #1 was short-sighted and exhibited a lot of tunnel vision. Looking back, though, I still think that thread was a reasonable exchange. My 2nd and 3rd points were fair, and I conceded much of point 1 to you after your reply (which was very high quality).
Obviously, we have the benefit of hindsight now in seeing how well you were able to execute. Kudos on that!
Congrats on your success! I wish you nothing but the best going forward!
Zed Shaw's take on the matter. https://zedshaw.com/2018/03/25/the-billionaires-vs-brandonm/
I hope BrandonM isn't haunted by his comment or anything. It's not really a big deal right? Can't we just have a chuckle about it and move on? Besides, his comment was the top voted one (simultaneously my comment has a lot of upvotes too). We all get things wrong from time to time, especially at a young age. Big deal. He's probably been right a million times but nobody remembers those.
Also it really shits me that every time I log in I get a little banner that says “Almost out of space? Try Dropbox Business!”.
One, no, I am not almost out of space. I’m at 15% and if you don’t know that, there’s something terribly wrong.
Two, I’m not a business. I’m just me. And I already pay for Pro. Get out of my goddamned face.
/rant
It’s not the devs. The owners likely become sufficiently detached from the end product and experience and sales/marketing teams are left to squeeze every bit of fiscal value from the thing. That usually results in battles for new analytics or new features that usually look like background software/network bloat, and judging the client to increase their spend no matter what. Those teams always have to post higher numbers regardless of the market.
Not that I disagree.
The forced ad, accidentally clicked, locked my account, had to spend an hour cleaning it up.
Probably got tests running to see what exactly keeps people around when they get onto the plan.
When you've got that many users, I think it becomes norm. I remember a funny story about how Google tested hundreds of shades of blue to see which exact shade lifted click through rates the most. The standard default blue won.
I can't agree that the impact on UX is worthwhile in the long run but I can see how such things can be attractive when you haven't got the, I dunno the right word for it, "clout" to look past the immediate bottom line like Amazon or Apple had when people were betting on them.
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."