Is there any reason, 10 years after release, why I should be using Dropbox instead of my own network attached storage? Or does their product really just boil down to "storage as-a-service, as a service"?
Stagnating!
Seriously, which major functionality you’d want to add to your, idk, snow brush, duct tape, thermometer?
Or does their product really just boil down to "storage as-a-service, as a service"?
I’m not using cloud storage/sync, but if I did, that would be an exact formula for choosing a product. I mean I’d want to put files in a dir (v-drive?) and that’s it. And when the time comes, Dropbox will be first, because it’s basically synonymous to it, unless price-prohibitive. Am I missing something here?
Maybe features you talked about are sharing, social-something, smartphone integration, etc. Genuinely not sure.
In the case of Dropbox, I would say HN was directionally correct that the software would be commoditized, but I would say that the avg. commenter then would not be able to predict the IPO.
Yes, there are many other ways this could have been done, but it was built to be administered by non-technical people who at least understood how to upload files to Dropbox and they have access to all of Dropbox's file management tools. A massive chunk of functionality that we didn't have to build out!
There is little need to pay separate for Dropbox now that it is in Google Suite/Workspace and Microsoft Office 365.
But for a few years they were the only ones.