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Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

This is a move absolutely in the wrong direction. I'm sure the idea is to push more eyeballs across the DB logo and grow the userbase. But to those users, DB will look like yet another fileshare a la megaupload/filefront/whatever and not something particularly special.

Here's some better ideas:

- harden up the way users want to use the public folder and make it more like a CDN

- Add another price tier if they must to ensure it works!

- Let users host web sites out of their public folder! Hand craft HTML still has a place among basic users who just want to put up a web page about their dog!

- put media specific folders in the public folder (maybe at different price tiers) and turn it into a flickr/soundcloud/youtube competitor!

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"Let users host web sites out of their public folder! Hand craft HTML still has a place among basic users who just want to put up a web page about their dog!"

I think this is one of the reasons they are phasing out the public folder, as people are able to do exactly that[1]. I remember it was mentioned on Lifehacker a while back[2], so maybe its becoming an issue. With the share functionality, you just get the code[3], making it impossible to use dropbox in this way.

[1] - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4146904/HelloHN.html

[2] - http://lifehacker.com/5528104/use-dropbox-to-share-and-host-...

[3] - https://www.dropbox.com/s/6d3tz52kv87we0w/HelloHN.html

A staffer (?) mentions further down that almost no one was using their Public folder, so I really doubt that the average Dropbox user wants any of the things you listed.

Dropbox is a file storage and sharing service, not a CDN or web host. Just because it could be hacked to make it a CDN or web host doesn't mean those things are highly desirable to customers or good for their actual business.

> almost no one was using their Public folder

I almost exclusively use my public folder. I mean, I keep things in other folders as well, but my main use case is typically "I want to send this file to $friend, so I'll just save it in my public folder and send them the link."

They made it easier to do this. You can send a public link to any file anywhere in Dropbox now.

No, now it's saddled with weird arbitrary restrictions and a URL tree that makes no sense.

Sorry for the tone -- I'm a little frustrated.

"Let users host web sites out of their public folder! Hand craft HTML still has a place among basic users who just want to put up a web page about their dog!"

I'm not sure about that. Isn't that what all of the free blogging services and/or facebook are for?

>> - put media specific folders in the public folder (maybe at different price tiers) and turn it into a flickr/soundcloud/youtube competitor!

Is it really a good idea to open multiple fronts against services which are 'pro' at what they do?

I would LOVE it if DB became a YouTube competitor. I don't share many videos on YT because it is so annoying to upload them. If I could just fling them in a DB folder and know my online video library was growing, my family and I would be posting many, many more.

However, I'd understand why DB would stay far away from that (too distracting from the core mission). They have to find somewhere new to grow into, though.

I'd look into building an app to do it, but they limit apps to 150MB files.

Even though there's an upload limit, it might still be possible to create an app that plays back uploaded files by getting a /media link and embedding the URL in a flash/HTML5 player.

A browser extension/desktop program could possibly add a "get video link" option to the Dropbox interface.

"Let users host web sites out of their public folder!"

Dropbox is awesome as a publishing mechanism for static websites, but public folders were never an ideal host. (Ugly URLs, no default document, etc.)

My startup, site44.com, was built to address the desire to host static websites using Dropbox. We're a better solution for that particular use case.

I, for one, will keep my Public folder and only make the files within it public.

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