>Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce
Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago. That's why I started using it.
Dropbox does now allow a more cloud-native file system / cloud backup usage pattern, but its roots are absolutely "keep my files in sync across several computers."
That was 10 years ago. Yes, I also started using it because of that. These days the the more important feature (at least for me) is being able to offload rarely used files from my drive. SSDs in MacBooks are still crazy expensive.
This comment thread is about how the author doesn’t seem to realize that the motive of these services has changed in response to fewer and fewer users wanting a sync solution versus a backup solution.
It's definitely not "fewer and fewer users wanting a sync solution" and instead "more and more computer users we can sell something to if we pile features into our overloaded app".
There's a criticism in there that I share because I miss when things were more modular, but I also understand and appreciate the value and opportunities that modern tech is bringing to people.
The back and forth chaos of progress and foundation-building is important but frustrating.
Well, above all, it's super convenient. The files stay where they are, you just mark them as "online only" and they don't take up space on your disk.
When you click to open such file or folder, it will immediately download back to your disk and you can use it again. You will lose maybe a few seconds once in a blue moon when you need one of them. But you easily gain hundreds of gigabytes of space on your SSD. Just yesterday I right-clicked some folders to mark them "online only" and immediately gained +300GB free space..
Plus of course you can access those files from your phone or ipad too, when needed. Basically I personally have all my work files in Dropbox and don't use additional backup (used Backblaze in the past).
External drives are a thing of history. Too much hassle, too much inconvenience, can't access anytime and anywhere I want, etc. What's the benefit of external drive compared to Dropbox really?
Dropbox works well for small files that you need to share with others. However, if you use it to back up large amounts of data ... say >100GB, the experience of using it is very poor. It consumes large amounts of CPU continually. It takes forever to run to completion (literally in some cases, in my case it ran for weeks before I gave up on it). An external hard drive is of comparable cost to Dropbox, and a one-time cost, not something you need to pay for, forever. It runs to completion in 20 minutes. You can keep multiple versions of it in different physical locations. It's conceptually simple with fewer points of failure.
Personally I tried using several different cloud backup solutions, but I gave up on them. A few encrypted external hard drives, updated every month or two in a repeatable way (e.g. a bash script), one at home, one at work ... and backup is a solved problem. Of course, to each their own.
Then you had some problem. I have ~1TB in Dropbox, files small and large. No problems with sync. Once in a while it does go crazy, eats up a lot of CPU and takes 1 hour to get in proper sync. It’s annoying, but luckily it’s rare. And it goes with me everywhere. How do you access external drive from your phone anyway?
The point of the external hard drives is really just to have a backup. I don't have a 1TB collection of files that I need to access from multiple places. So I would never try to access my big backup from my phone. I don't do that kind of work from my phone, ever. If you're in that situation, something like Dropbox might help, provided that it doesn't eat all your CPU. Good for you! Glad it's working out.
It's cheaper and faster. What's the hassle or inconvenience of a separate drive? If anything, Dropbox is less convenient because it requires installing an application to use it.
The only drawback is that you have to carry it around anywhere you want to access it. A modern external drive is the size of a phone though, so that's hardly a dealbreaker even if you do want to carry it around. Although frankly, cloud storage is much better for filesharing.
I guess it’s just about everyone’s slightly different scenarios. My typical example: I have all my photos on Dropbox. Some of them a decade old. Don’t need them taking up SSD space. Don’t need to carry them around. But once in a blue moon I want to see a decade old photo from my phone while I’m on the other side of planet. Same for my ebooks, older work files, tax returns, etc, etc.
Some were. But your point is valid; a company will move to what _most_ customers want. A FOSS application can keep servicing the (perhaps smaller) original crowd of users.
10 years ago, Dropbox was still storing your files on their servers so that your devices did not need to be online and accessible at all times in order to sync. It still operated in a fundamentally different manner than Syncthing. All that has really changed about the app is the marketing around it.
Dropbox still has my files on its servers. Not sure what you mean here. If all my devices are off, I can access anything in my Dropbox account from any computer's browser.
>>Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce
> Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago.
It's what was advertised. I find it interesting that its initial reception on HN is so frequently slammed for saying "we could already do this, if we wanted to", and then... 10+ years later, Dropbox has had to switch to doing something people want.
The only value I ever saw people getting from Dropbox was in using it as a way to hand off files to someone else across the internet. Which is a use case Dropbox has spent many years fighting against.
It's crazy how much I enjoy simple software. No crazy complicated APIs and complex installs. Just give me a binary I can call with a command line interface. I can play with it interactivity and easily automated whenever needed.
The only thing I ever use Dropbox for is requesting files from people that are too large or that their corporate Exchange environment prevents from being sent over email.
>The only value I ever saw people getting from Dropbox
Your exposure to Dropbox users is very very limited, then. I only very, very rarely use it as a medium to share. OTOH, I use it CONSTANTLY as a every-device file system, i.e. across my main machine, my backup, my iOS devices, and remote systems I work from. The sync is everything to me.
Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago. That's why I started using it.
Dropbox does now allow a more cloud-native file system / cloud backup usage pattern, but its roots are absolutely "keep my files in sync across several computers."