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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

I don't see much long-term growth for Dropbox in its current state. Right now, they're a stopgap feature. They've been successful so far because they fill a niche, but the niche that they fill is temporary. Old computing is having your files on your computer and accessing them with local applications. New computing is having your files in the cloud and accessing them from applications in the cloud. In a fully cloud-hosted architecture, there is no need for dropbox. Dropbox is a halfway point in getting us into the cloud, and as more and more apps move into the cloud they will become more and more unnecessary.

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Dropbox have one special ingredient - it actually works. Do you think Samsung or Acer are going to come up with something robust and resilient? Even if they did, do you think it would work on Mac or iOS or WP7? Do you think Microsoft's solution would work outside of Windows?

Heck even Ubuntu One (which only had to work on one operating system whose source they had) never worked reliably for me. (I ended up with machines in the admin centre multiple times, and about once a month one of my machines would silently decide to stop syncing files.)

Doing 80% of a file solution that works some of the time in some of the places is easy. Doing the rest is something that only Dropbox has managed.

As for long term growth, consider that for each of us the amount of digital data we have keeps growing, that we often want to share differing parts of it with different groups and that there keep being new kinds of data beyond just "binary files".

Put another way, ask any Dropbox user if there is more they wish it did. You'll get a long list back. Where there is demand, there is opportunity and growth. They have a list of over 6,500 different requests at their website:

https://www.dropbox.com/votebox

Admittedly around 6,000 things aren't that interesting:

https://www.dropbox.com/votebox#votebox:popular:600

you're missing what i'm saying. i don't think there's an opportunity for competition dropbox's market, they are undoubtedly the best at what they do and their users love them. they do a great job, but i think that the job they're doing is going to become irrelevant soon.

>As for long term growth, consider that for each of us the amount of digital data we have keeps growing

the amount of digital data i have is not growing, it's shrinking at an alarming pace. i don't have any documents. google has documents that i have authored, and i can retrieve them from google any time i want to, but i don't have them and i don't have to worry about where they're stored. i don't need a service to keep them synced between my computers because they're not on my computers. i let google worry about delivering them to me.

>there keeps being new kinds of data beyond binary files

this is what i'm talking about. dropbox keeps track of binary files. it doesn't currently handle new, less tangible types of data, and until it does its potential is pretty limited.

Doing a crappy subset of their job will become irrelevant - I certainly agree about that. Doing the "whole" job is really what we are debating. I'd make the case that having lots of crappy different services out there is what provides the case for something that can aggregate, backup and provide access to those pieces. (Only time will prove that right or wrong.)

> the amount of digital data i have is not growing, it's shrinking at an alarming pace

You then list how you have new digital data in the form of Google documents :-) They used to only have a few types of data ("documents" and spreadsheets). You now also get presentations, drawings, forms, tables and collections. And guess what, Google do indeed provide a crappy subset of their experience. Have you every tried to edit/view a Google doc on an Android device? I'd be delighted to have those docs also sitting in Dropbox available on all my devices at all times and to the many local programs I have that provide better viewers/editors than Google ever will. (Note this doesn't mean I want Dropbox to be the primary location for them, just that I want Dropbox to provide enhanced access and backup.)

> dropbox keeps track of binary files. it doesn't currently handle new, less tangible types of data, and until it does its potential is pretty limited

It does handle photos and sharing. I agree that binary plus photos is limiting, but the whole point is that by expanding beyond that they will have the opportunity for growth.

"google has documents that i have authored, and i can retrieve them from google any time i want to, but i don't have them and i don't have to worry about where they're stored."

You should really automate backups of your google docs to local storage. I've lost data when documents inexplicably disappeared.

Hard though it may be for people that live in the Valley and work as programmers to believe, most of the world isn't permanently connected to adequate-speed internet. For the 99%, they do need to worry about where files are stored, specifically why they can't access them even on the laptop they used to create them.

That's why Dropbox will continue to annihilate any service that doesn't locally save data. If my files are in Dropbox I can freely access them on the laptop I used to create them whether I'm sitting in a hotel that has so many stars you have to pay for WiFi or on a beach in Thailand. And the next time I have my laptop on within the range of publicly accessible free WiFi, it's all in the "cloud". If the internet connection is extremely intermittent I can have my updates save asynchronously without the endless frustration of browser error messages (or even worse, an Ajax smokescreen concealing the failure of an app to update server-side).

And even if I'm sitting in my office with a perfect high-speed connection doing average office work, the chances are that at some stage I'll be using a program with functionality not available in filesystem-less SaaS. In which case I don't really begrudge the extra few gigs of disk space Dropbox takes over pure cloud hosting.

I agree right now, but I've learned to suppress my initial reactions on these things. I thought Facebook had basically exhausted their niche in early 2007 and there was nowhere to go for them, and that's turned out to be pretty false. Only time can tell whether a startup ends up becoming another Facebook or another Digg.

It's not really where you are now that matters, but where you end up going. And Drew's a really smart guy and maniacally focused on his company. It's quite possible he sees things about their market that we don't.

Wait for Google to destroy their dream by releasing a competing product that integrates with Google+ and Google Apps.

evil laugh

Google Docs already acts as cloud storage, you can upload most file types there.

https://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

They also sell extra space, shared with Picasa.

https://accounts.google.com/b/0/PurchaseStorage?hl=en_US

True, but "most files" still doesn't cut it. I have great hopes for the upcoming Google Drive, it would solve many of the problems I'm facing right now in project management (I wrote about it on my blog: http://luckyisgood.com/blog/google-drive/) - and support for all file types is essential if Google wants to call its service "cloud storage".

Holy french fries. With Google, I can get 80GB for $20/year: https://support.google.com/docs/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

With Dropbox, 100GB would cost me $199/year.

I've been with Dropbox forever (I have account #315) but man, it is tempting to snag 80GB for the price of half a tank of gas.

Convenience is obviously the primary loss. But I'm a nerd. It would likely be easy to figure out some way of auto-syncing my whole music folder.

My other primary usage for Dropbox (and incidentally the motivation for its inception) is as a way to transfer files to other people. There's nothing like being able to host your own .html file within your own dropbox with literally zero effort. That said, a hybrid of the two seems best -- ridiculously cheap bulk storage, combined with the convenience of Dropbox when needed.

Facebook didnt grow much (functionality-wise) other than in number of members. Other than that, most features are exactly the same as in 2007. No wonder; an average programmer could write Facebook core functionality in a matter of few days; the major issue/challange at Facebook is scalling, not programming. Show me other piece of software that is concurrently accessed by hundred million users.

> Facebook didnt grow much (functionality-wise)

How about Open Graph or the Facebook Platform?

Think if dropbox has a platform. (like word processors saving directly to Dropbox - the defacto cloud storage network)

Dropbox already has a platform (it's API). You can already save directly to your Dropbox from a variety of sites. Still, not a whole bunch of folks use this functionality.

Early 2007 was before Facebook Apps came out. There was no Farmville, no SuperPoke, no Scrabulous, no Washington Post Social Reader. It was also before Facebook Status Messages (IIRC a reaction to Twitter, which hadn't gained traction yet), before the News Feed (IIRC a reaction to Friendfeed, which wouldn't be founded for another few months), before the Facebook Mobile App (the iPhone was brand new and didn't yet allow 3rd-party apps, Android hadn't come out yet), and the UI was completely different. There was no Facebook Connect or Like button.

I disagree, I see dropbox files as MY FILES. I don't like when they are obscured behind some application. I don't see those as MY FILES, I like to see my files in my folders and it's nice and I have a sense of ownership. Dropbox is just an extension of my own personal home filesystem. But it's EVERYWHERE. And that my friends, is what makes all the difference. Like Drew said, he wants a filesystem for the internet. I think this is lost on lots of "the cloud" proponents, who are focused just on applications.

you have to admit that you're the minority though. the average user doesn't like files. if you've ever done end-user support, you've seen how foreign the whole concept of a filesystem is to most of them. the goal in an average use case is not to modify a file, as so much software seems designed to do, it is to generate some output. people don't open up microsoft word so they can write a letter and save it on their hard drive, they open up word so they can write a letter and print it out. the fact that it gets saved at all is mostly incidental to them, where it gets saved is totally irrelevant.

The average user doesn't buy an Apple computer either, or own an iPhone. Heck, even the average smartphone user doesn't have an iPhone. Yet Apple does quite well for itself.

You're only technically correct because of how averages work. Novice computer users make up a major part of Apple's demographic, and often times their products are more suitable. More specifically, there are a number of features in Mac OSX which simplify the file system for novice users, including "All My Files", "Date Last Opened"/"Date Added" sorting capabilities, and browsable folders straight from the dock.

   I see dropbox files as MY FILES. I don't like when
   they are obscured behind some application

The important thing is that it's YOU (and me), not the average computer user. Apple and Google are successful because they fill average users' needs with simple, intuitive and easy to use products; not by presenting them with an scary concept like 'file system'.

I hate it when I'm on my iPad and have to do all sorts of stupid tricks to move files between applications. It's just stupid. But I'm sure Apple will fix most of the nightmare in iOS 6. But I must side with Steve Jobs when he said "When you try and teach someone to use a Mac, everything is fine, until you show them the file system." Average computer users have extremely cluttered and unorganized folders and desktops. Dropbox does not help that.

I think Apple's strategy will work better for them (in the long term) than that of Dropbox's... “A lot of us have been working for 10 years to get rid of the file system so the user doesn't have to learn about it.” (Jobs, WWDC 2011)

And this is my favorite quote about Dropbox:

   "Dropbox... It's a feature, not a company"! (Steve Jobs)

"scary concept like 'file system'." I find that somewhat ironic considering it was meant to be intuitive and relate to the real world concept of Document,Files and Folders. But when the real world connection begins to be broken I can see how it becomes scary.

The problem is that in the real world managing documents, files and folders is a full time job for some people.

If documents, files and folders were intuitive and efficient, you wouldn't have relatively huge administrative staffs at medical clinics, real estate offices, banks, law offices, government institutions, schools, et cetera.

   "Dropbox... It's a feature, not a company"! (Steve Jobs)

Not only that... but I thought Dropbox was a feature built on top of S3? Not true?

Same could be said of "software" and "operating system" when microsoft was built.

Plus it is not like dropbox has set it's goal to do the one and the only thing that is file sync. That was a good goal to achieve until this point.

To me, the cloud is "Far." My computer is "Near."

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/near-far-summary.html

I don't think current technology (i.e. actual implementations) comes close to getting past this sort of psychological barrier yet.

Funny, to me, the cloud is "near" and my computer is "far". The cloud follows me wherever I go, which I can't say for my laptop.

At the moment each OS vendor is pushing their own cloud solution (Azure, iCloud, Kindle Amazon cloud storage)

Dropbox could become the universal cloud storage, which can be accessed using identical APIs on every platform, thus becoming the single store for users working with multiple operating systems. Furthermore, application programmers will only have to target this one API.

By that you mean Amazon could be the universal cloud storage being that Dropbox is essentially a client for s3

I think Dropbox can remain relevant by getting cloud apps to save their files on Dropbox accounts. This actually also helps the end users, whose files won't be locked away by whatever apps they use.

How many files will there be in the future? The perfect cloud doesn't know the concept of File, only URL's.

But why can't Dropbox become the main provider for this fully cloud-hosted architecture? So I keep my cloud files in Dropbox, and grant my cloud apps access to subsets of those files. Then they would truly be the "filesystem of the web" and the growth/profit prospects are rosy.

For example, http://leanpub.com/ uses Dropbox in an interesting way. As Dropbox beefs up their API and adds features, I think there are many interesting growth/monetization possibilities. I think the main danger is the competition from Google/Apple/MS.

The main danger for Dropbox is the commoditization of cloud storage, and filesystem abstraction. Dropbox style sharing going to be commonplace, everything will interact with the cloud, and web apps will abstract data in ways that make the conventional metaphors of files and directories obsolete. Plus as Amazon improves their API's and competitors emerge, Dropbox will get squeezed from every possible direction. They should pump and and dump while the market's good.

I was also surprised at their massive funding rounds too. Perhaps there's more room for growth than it seems...

Or maybe they are perfectly positioned to provide the "fully cloud-hosted architecture" itself: technology experience and market leadership. Under this hypothesis, they are hard at work on a general cloud platform behind the scenes, and that's their pitch to investors.

I don't understand this either, it's a commodity and everyone is doing it now. They don't seem to have special patents. I use Ubuntu One for example (5GB free) and there will be Google Drive soon.

Even when you count out the cloud future, how can Dropbox stay competitive against Google's infrastructure? They have peering contracts and their own servers.

Is there actually any of the services offering a client based encryption? So far I am using Dropbox only for exchanging pdfs and other non-personal stuff.

I think Bitcasa may fit the bill. They are in beta. I haven't received my invite yet, complain, complain.

I agree. Bitcasa will be a big player. One of the advantage Bitcasa has over Dropbox right now is that it can show the versions of your file right from the app. You don't have to go to the web. And we even didn't speak about pricing.

I didn't try Bitcasa yet since I got today an invitation.

Wuala.

It's not that convenient, but that's the tradeoff when you want client side encryption.

I've been relatively happy with using wuala to sync directories. My only gripe so far has been the android client seems to keep everything as temporary.

What does Apple do? Sell computers and smartphones. Everyone is doing it, but they do it differently, which for many people means better.

What does Google do? Web search. Someone else is doing it, but they just do it better.

And what makes those companies so successful in those areas is that it is very difficult to replicate what they do. It is not as difficult to replicate what Dropbox does, as noted by what your parent poster said.

Is it that difficult to replicate what Apple does, provided that you have enough resources? I don't think so. But, still, companies fail to do so.

Yes, what Dropbox does right now does not add up to much, but if they keep expanding their usefulness they could end up reaching a critical mass. Dropbox' business is not a niche: everyone needs effortless backups and file sharing. Everyone. Tomorrow they could be a major cloud storage company indeed.

> Is it that difficult to replicate what Apple does, provided that you have enough resources? I don't think so. But, still, companies fail to do so.

Replicating Apple's brand/image is what's hard. That brand has taken years of focusing on Apple's/Steve Jobs's particular style of doing business and building products. We see people trying now to replicate that, but it took Apple all of the 2000s to get its brand to where it is.

I agree. But how many companies do you see really focusing on their image and consumer experience? I used to be a fan of Nokia mobile phones and their ease of use, but as I upgraded to a Nokia 5800 I was disappointed, and lost my faith in that brand.

> But how many companies do you see really focusing on their image and consumer experience?

Not many, because it's hard and risky and - drum roll - difficult to replicate! Which brings us back to why I feel a direct comparison between Dropbox and Apple/Google is flawed: Dropbox presents comparatively little consumer value that is difficult to replicate. Hell, they don't even handle their own storage, Amazon does.

> Not many, because it's hard and risky and - drum roll - difficult to replicate!

I don't think so. IMO, companies do not focus on their image and consumer experience because most CEOs are not entrepreneurs, and lack vision. They have risen to the top not only because of their performance, but mostly because they have been very good at office politics. Think about companies who have a strong personality instead: don't you realize they are run - have been run - by entrepreneurs (Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, etc.)? OTOH, for CEOs who do not own their company, focus is most exclusively either on their company's stockholders or their company's board of directors.

> Hell, they don't even handle their own storage, Amazon does.

It's called "outsourcing". The most successful fashion companies do not own any factories (Nike, etc.).

EDIT: Actually, it has just occurred to me that some companies which have a strong personality without having an entrepreneur as their CEO are companies which do not own their assets, that is companies whose main product is marketing.

I agree with you. I'm not sure why email, with a few added features, can't just replace dropbox completely. I have more space in gmail (and unlimited space on yahoo) than I do on dropbox, for free. Email syncs better than dropbox on every machine I have because I don't need additional software. The only other limitation is sharing but I think this is where something like "wave" would have worked.

Just my thoughts.

There are a handful of products that turn Gmail into a filesystem. I have no idea how well they work today or how inter-operable they are.

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm (Windows) http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-filesystem/gmai... (Linux userland FS driver) http://gdisk.sourceforge.net/ (Mac)

They may be a stopgap feature right now, but they can evolve. Every successful company starts by filling a niche, and then keep expanding such niche till it reaches its critical mass.

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