Given Google's obvious prowess with servers, I'm actually amazed Google drive isn't better than it is.
I store everything on there including JPGs, AVCHD videos, TrueCrypt volumes and every other kind of file type. Never had a single sync issue or slow sync speed.
OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) on the other hand... That constantly left filename.machinename split versions and the sync speed was uselessly slow.
If I empty out both drives and start from scratch, then put the same files in both, it seems to take Google Drive around 350% time to sync the same files.
Saying that, as a paying customer, I still love Dropbox since it's sync quality & ease is outstanding. I'm also a fan of their Datastore API.
Microsoft's Onedrive has been surprisingly good for me - on Android as well.
The OS X client is passable, and the fact that you can't do things like LAN sync or rate limit the upload speed make it no good for many clients of mine.
Also, Google Drive misses some basic functionality, like getting an actual list of of shared folders and with whom they were shared [1]. Instead you have to check every folder manually.
[1] http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/46135/how-can-i-s...
One can easily argue though that, Google Drive may make a change which breaks insync - but for past year and half, I have had zero problems.
For me, there are two things that make Dropbox a better option than MS/Amazon/Google:
1) It's their core business. You know it's not going to be dropped next week because the side project wasn't popular enough or it's not making enough money.
2) The on iPhone/Mac apps that I use quite often offer a sync option with Dropbox not many sync with other providers.
For business use, the $10 per month is peanuts for a more seamless experience.
Besides that, Dropbox seems to be branching out. There is Carousel, which I like quite much compared to the cl*sterfuck that is Google Plus photos. I can put my photos in regular Dropbox folders, but still have a Flickr-like experience. Also, there is Mailbox.
Of course, they need a better collaborative editing story than 'you can save from Office on Android/iOS to Dropbox'.
Amazon, Google and MS are after users to absorb them into their other products and then merge or drop those products years letter.
My Dropbox account still works the same after all those years, I can't say the same of Google Drive/Doc SkyDrive/OneDrive/LiveMesh/etc.
> It's the whole Jobs thing with 'you're a feature, not a product.'
I'd turned that the other way. Dropbox is a product while Google, MS and Amazon's dropbox-like offers are a side-feature of other business.
edit: Then there is the `brand` argument. Dropbox is solid.
Note: I am not convinced those arguments are valid in the business space but this is how I think it pans out for most `standard` users (free and paying).
(Perhaps with the exception of Microsoft, who seem to want to sell Office with OneDrive.)
I think this may be the most prescient comment here. I wonder if Dropbox and Microsoft may start looking more and more alike. MSFT with a OS as a side business and Dropbox with an office suite as a side business.
First, have you tried the Cloud Drive UI? It's barely hackathon-level quality. They have basic photo browsing, which is nice, but the Dropbox UX is orders of magnitude better at the time of writing.
Second, a lot of people use Dropbox to share files. Amazon's service is currently about back-ups. They're somewhat different use cases, and sharing is arguably a harder problem than backup because the sharing experience must have much less friction to succeed. So Dropbox is already years ahead of Amazon in this regard.
Third, storage at scale is still much cheaper than what anybody is charging. A 4U of RAID 5 SATA drives costs quite a bit less than Amazon's $59/yr/TB price point. (I know Cloud Drive is "unlimited" at that price, but survey data suggest to me most users have less than 1TB of data or unwilling to upload that much). While Dropbox purportedly uses S3 heavily, S3 is about $360/yr/TB. Clearly Dropbox must have storage hedged with something else to back their Pro service (even if that tech is still under development).
Dropbox can, with high probability, meet Amazon's offering here, and they'll likely blow Amazon's UX out of the park.
Amazon doesn't have much strength as a consumer-facing tech brand, afaict. As a developer, I trust S3. But as a consumer, do I trust Amazon's software to be usable or reliable? I'm not so sure.
Still, long-term, I find it hard to see things panning out for good ol DBX without something big coming out soon...
Personally I'll wait until I can get a client that can encrypt my data.
I would never try to build a third-party product based on this service. That's what S3 is for.
Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1499/
I wonder if Amazon can somehow leverage their own network effects into this product. e.g. Lots of content is already stored in S3.
I don't know about Android, but I really hope iOS moves towards a generic cloud storage interface so that competitors can more easily get traction, but I know this isn't in Apple's interest.
You can even save substantial money over "pure" S3 just by proxying and caching requests for the most heavily trafficked objects somewhere with lower bandwidth costs.
Dropbox is pre-installed on a lot of samsung smartphones and can not be removed. This removes the hurdle for people who don't know much about cloud storage from picking one.
Although I consider this bloatware it appears to be a very good marketing strategy.
Of course, I can't imagine its most influential board member, Condoleezza Rice, will ever agree to that.