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Comment by Longhanks | Hacker News Reader

I wish they would return to their "a folder that syncs" model. I feel like Dropbox has not improved in any point in the last 5 years. Their core sync engine is truly amazing, but everything else is a mess. They killed that one Mail app, they have this thing called "Paper" they try to shove onto me on every occasion, their desktop app is cluttered with information I don't care about and is now a web app, now they have this limit of 3 maximum number of devices (which they didn't have the first 5 years I've used the service)... the list goes on.

I just want a folder. A folder that syncs.

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Your comment about the three device limit on the free tier suggests you won’t pay for just a folder that syncs. And that is the issue. Dropbox basically saturated the market of professionals and agencies willing to pay for just a folder. New features attract additional customers, and they can do this while keeping basic sync solid.

I support their growth because their biggest competitors are Apple, Google and Microsoft. I want there to exist a relatively independent competitor with decent market share.

I think the limit of 3 is because you’re on the free tier. They are trying to transition to a model where they can make money.

I don’t blame them for it, but I did switch to using iCloud Drive instead of Dropbox because I am already paying for iCloud for photos, and the space is so much cheaper for the small amount I need.

They need better storage/pricing tiers. I think very few people need 2TB and 3TB for personal use.

Back in the day, I needed less than their minimum tier offered, and sent support an e-mail, because I heard they would give you an exception if you asked.

They were able to give me a cheaper plan with a smaller capacity. A little later, my storage tier was less than the amount they were offering for free, and they stopped billing me.

I don't know if they're still willing to do that, but that gesture earned a lot of goodwill from me.

I agree with the sentiment but

> Their core sync engine is truly amazing

Compared to current competitors (e.g. pCloud) their syncing has been a mess. It tends to take forever to sync even the smallest files. I have no idea what's going on there anymore.

I've never heard of pCloud before, is it really better than Dropbox?

A folder that syncs, period: https://syncthing.net . No web app, no mail, no nothing; just a folder that syncs.

And the ability to hop on the public relay and discovery servers (and/or provide your own) is really the community spirit at work.

I don't use my full xfer allowance on my VPC all by myself so I flip on my relay every month to use it up.

I would use syncthing and totally drop dropbox if they had an iphone app.

This. 5 years may be generous too.

I've been using Dropbox since it's beta days around 2007 or 2008. I'm still a paying customer, but at this point I'm not exactly sure why.

Back in the day it's sync was far superior than any of their competitor's, but now it's largely a bunch of half baked features and products.

Until they recently made Smart Sync available to non-business customers nothing they had released was of any use to me. Mailbox was okay, but Inbox by Google was far superior. I tried using Paper for ~5 minutes. Once I realized I couldn't import my existing .txt or .md files it was of no use to me.

It would be great if I were able to sync any/all of my got repos, but without a Dropbox version of .gitignore this simply just isn't an option. Who wants to sync the node_modules directory? Not me.

My initial experience with Paper when it came out wasn't super positive.

I revisited it late last year, and I now use it heavily. Their markdown shortcuts are what hooked me. It's not perfect, but I do a lot of my notes in it now.

Can you elaborate on this limit of devices that you're talking about? Are you on a free account?

I felt the same. When they started imposing a 3 device limit, I decided to move to Seattle and haven't looked back. Granted, a self-hosted solution has its drawbacks but I enjoyed setting it up and haven't had any sync problems with it.

I will say that the quality of certain clients is hit-or-miss but overall it gets me exactly what I need: a folder that syncs across devices and platforms.

The fact that the sync "just works" is why I pay for DropBox. I've had bad experiences with Google drive and One Drive (or whatever its called now). I don't mind DB adding new features, but I hope they never take their eye off the ball and lost focus. A password manager and as task manager sound like good ideas for them to implement though.

They should also focus on better pricing/storage tiers. I see 2TB and 3TB as too much for your average consumer.

From consumer perspective - yes, that'd probably bring in more customers who're currently using free tier. But on the other hand a plenty of customers will switch over from more expensive subscription to a cheaper one. They may win some but they'll lose some too and it's hard from outside to say what would be the final numbers.

2TB is a lot.

I have a lot of stuff backed up into my 2TB account, and I'm still floating at only around 1TB of used storage.

But I don't take a lot of videos. I can see people with families who record a lot of HD video use up a lot of space more quickly than me.

I remember really liking Mailbox and I never understood why the acquired it only to shut it down. Sure there are acqui-hires but Mailbox actually seemed like it would be a good component to have in the Dropbox suite.

Couldn't agree more. I uninstalled their app from my systems recently. The client just keeps getting fatter. It now has a full UI for browsing your files in addition to just opening Windows explorer.

Then use sync.com

We switched to sync.com at work when Dropbox first started with all their expansion nonsense. It's been pretty much nothing but trouble.

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