Hacker News Reader

Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

You'd be surprised how difficult "giving it away" can be, even for Google. Google succeeded big on giving away email, search, and androids. Do I need to list up all the acquisitions and products that even with a mortal lock on navigation on the Internet Google couldn't convince people was worth at least $0?

View on HN

Dropbox can take the approach of not worrying if they want. Standing on years of head start perhaps.

However: File sync strikes me as a lot closer to email than <insert failed acquisition here>.

Additionally, it seems logical to build/ship GDrive right into android.

I say again: I'd worry like hell.

Agreed. File sharing is the type of thing where you can't just rely on first-mover-advantage. Google has the ability and infrastructure to offer more space for free on more devices and platforms.

Dropbox was not the first mover [1]. In fact, their entrance into the market for cloud storage/sync is in a way analogous to Google's entrance into search.

You're second point sounds right. But to me, Dropbox has always been about the UX and convenience rather than the cost / space.

I think it will be interesting to see what Google launches.

[1] See this slide for CEO Drew Houston's humorous take on this: http://www.slideshare.net/gueste94e4c/dropbox-startup-lesson...

Dropbox's success isn't about hardware. The interface is the product.

And really it's their lack of an interface--it just works.

I WISH I could remember who said it, but I applies here and in so many other areas: You must offer the consumer something MUCH better than what they already have to get them to switch from something they like. Google Maps dis this when Mapquest was the standard.

Does GDrive do that? Not yet.

I agree with what you wrote mostly. What dropbox could do to mess up and give Google a chance to do something much better is this: don't give people more free space when the average user struggles with the 2GB limit. One of the things that made gmail a success was that hotmail and the rest cheaper out on space. People had to constantly clean up their 2MB mailboxes. Google might be able to do the same again if dropbox don't offer more space for free. But that would take away from their earnings, so it isn't an easy problem to solve.

"simplicity is the keynote of elegance"

File sharing is the type of thing where you can't just rely on first-mover-advantage.

Yes, especially in a market where there are many, many users of computers who might have occasion to share files who have not used (or even heard of) any of the available file-sharing solutions yet. I am a sporadic user of Dropbox strictly for back-up of documents I produce, and a moderately frequent user of Google Docs for collaborative editing who knows a lot of other Google Docs users. I could see Google making huge gains in market share, turning it into tomorrow's "first mover" from the point of view of most users, for a file-sharing service.

I didn't get why Dropbox was so popular when I was using it the same way you are right now. Okay, it's a convenient way to make backups, but so what?

Then I started using it for sharing. Man, it's magic - I've never had it be so painless to share things. I can put a folder in my dropbox, share it to a few emails, and then everyone just has it later in the day. Man, that's cool. I can also create unlimited of those folders easily to control who gets what documents/files. It's a bloody miracle, Dropbox is. The backup feature is really second fiddle to sharing, it's just to make it useful enough for you to try it before you need to share, so that you discover sharing and fall in love with the product.

If they have a decent business plan, some well thought out contingencies, and the ability/willingness to compete, they'll be fine for a while yet.

They have specific brand momentum (where Google's momentum is not specific to the product) which counts for a lot when dealing with the general public.

I wouldn't worry like hell. Though I would worry a healthy amount: I'd keeping a very close eye on how this pans out, and would re-double efforts to make sure I didn't fall behind on product development, quality and support.

Giving away a viable alternative to that which consumers are already paying for, however, is hard to imagine failing.

You can add Google Navigation and Google Voice to the list of successful products that match that description.

That would actually be a very interesting list. Hard to complete exhaustively, but a few relevant examples would be great!

Google Video (rescued by throwing a few billion at the competitor who was running away with the space), Lively (its like IMVU except without the users), Dodgeball, Wave, Google Page Creator (its like Weebly except without the users), Orkut (debatable whether one can put it in the failure column for not being FB but it certainly isn't FB), etc, etc.

But Google 'gives everything away' (with indirect monetisation), both the products that succeed and the products that fail. So in that sense this is just a list of failed products which are the byproduct of innovation at such a scale, rather than an indication of what has worked and what has not for Google in the past. Surely in this case, going up against a competitor that needs to charge, Google would be at a massive advantage (legality aside) by not having to charge?

I agree. Just look at the way Google slowed down the incrementally increasing storage of Gmail. It's been some time but it's still lagging after they did a major "bump" some years back. There might be a lot of applause at the beginning but being able to knock Dropbox out of the game will take serious effort.

I think GDrive will help DropBox more by offloading their freeriders to Google. People seeking a better premium experience (and less risk of say losing all their GDrive contents because their Google+ got suspended) will likely find DropBox appealing once they realize the convenience of a service like this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com