This is interesting because having layoffs at a company that should be going off like a rocket during a pandemic is odd. What is going on at Dropbox that prevented them from taking advantage of the huge shift to remote work?
Unless you're hoarding data or want to avoid Microsoft, the choice is simple. And I'm sure you have even cheaper services.
As soon as I noticed this issue, the deal of 1TB storage with a O365 subscription also went sour. 1TB I can't really use -- no deal.
This problem is well known; it's all over the internet -- OneDrive is a sloth. It doesn't affect downloads, btw.
...or have access to a licensed copy of the "real" Microsoft Office, the desktop app, which doesn't lag (that much), where all keyboard shortcuts work, drag-and-drop isn't too surprising, and you can use over a slow/metered/non-existent connection (bus, train, airplane), so you don't really care about Office 365.
Or you use it for something other than Word, Excel and Powerpoint. I know plenty of people who do architecture, landscaping or design who use Dropbox precisely because most of the things they use it for don't involve Office (much).
For lots of people, Microsoft 365 Personal is 70 $/year for 1 TB and a bunch of things that might as well be Google Docs, which are free. 200$/year for three times more storage space isn't a terribly bad deal.
Edit: yes, I realize Microsoft 365 allows you to use the desktop apps. That doesn't add much if you already have the desktop apps. Or if you don't need either the web or the desktop version.
Microsoft 365 allows you to download the desktop app versions of Office. No need for an internet connection after that.
If you use the storage, then sure. But I would assume that you can then find better prices for 3TB.
You can see it this way:
- if you want an office license, it's 70$/year, and as a bonus you have a dropbox equivalent for free for 1TB.
- if you want some storage, up to 1TB, OneDrive is 70$/year, and as a bonus you have access to the complete office suite for free (yes, you can download all the office applications to run them locally and up to date, and also have access to the web versions)
I personally don't see how Dropbox can compete. The competition is cheaper, has more features, and offers almost the same user experience.
My point was that if you already have an Office license, it's 70$/year for something you already have + 1 TB (on what, until recently, used to be a pretty shoddy Dropbox clone, rather than a Dropbox equivalent -- but maybe it's improved in the meantime). In that case, there's no bonus.
Why not a $3.99 for 100GB? $7.99 for 1TB?
A lot of people (myself included) said "That's too much money especially since I don't need that much space."
I'm happy to pay whatever I pay for Dropbox -- I don't actually remember what it is -- but I'd rather they stop throwing in bullshit kitchen-sink features.
Another solution is Google Drive, adding Insync for desktop sync.
I'm unwilling to use Google services if I can avoid it.
Thank you!
That's a problem indeed.
There might be further reasons for it, but I mostly use it as an offsite backup that my wife could upload to -- so usability was a plus -- but not worth that kind of premium.
But the lowest-end plan costs about the same as Netflix, and I have too many subscriptions in my life already.
Limited devices (ugh) and high cost to unlimit (ugh).
That didn't have to happen.
Good luck competing with GAFA on this, best hope is a buyout. Firesale on depreciating assets.
On the consumer side, storage will become an appliance, like a (stick of butter sized) fridge. Or just included in your centralized home + family control center.
You can already get an inexpensive Synology NAS with a slick UI and backups to a cloud provider of your choice, or Nextcloud, although there's probably room on both for one click import from your existing Dropbox account using your auth and their API to migrate contents.
Dropbox is much more than just storage. They also have their own infrastructure and don't depend on GAFA. They made a decision to not compete on the consumer side. I didn't like it but you cannot blame them given the large pockets of the competition and the fact they can monetize those costumers with their other products unlike Dropbox. They compete in enterprise where price is not the main factor like it's for consumers and doing it successfully.
I will ping you in 5 years... (they might indeed get acquired though. If that happens it's gonna be for at least double of what $dbx is worth today)
Who is going to be championing Dropbox on the enterprise buyer's side? Employees that are satisfied consumers or the IT office that uses the same 4-5 vendors for everything?
Great idea and execution, very valuable but seemed valued even higer than that to me (i.e overvalued). They were well-placed for app hosting - but lots of competition and it's hard to hit the jackpot twice (even google hasn't managed it, nor apple, arguably).
The last thing my free account does is sync my 1Password - and I’ll likely go cloud on that soon anyway
People will just share the same way they shared while in the office.
And with people having access to Box, why would they bother with Dropbox?