How Dropbox Will Die(forbes.com)
forbes.com
How Dropbox Will Die
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcoursey/2011/10/18/how-dropbox-will-die/
19 comments
I agree with most of what you write save the fact that Dropbox is not a feature. I use dropbox constantly to the point it is invisible to my work. My files move around without me worrying about it. From a consumer point of view (ie, non-tech) how your files synchronize doesn't matter. The fact that the files are there when you need them is what matters. In the consumer eye, Dropbox would be a feature of all their devices.
As long as enough people are willing to pay for the 'feature' I'm sure that the dropbox founders don't care too much what people call it :)
I think it is a silly article with a link bait headline. The author has taken his very narrow use cases and extrapolated it to all users. If he can replace dropbox with evernote then he is using dropbox in a very different way from me, not to mention that his implicit message seems to be that all operating systems are going to become Apple-owned, which is silly. Yes, icloud might hurt dropbox but that's a far cry from a death knell.
Agreed.
The article basically says "I don't pay for dropbox, therefore it will fail." The backup for this is "Dropbox is a feature, not a product." And "other companies that I have made this statement about have failed."
Somehow this isn't convincing for me at all.
The article basically says "I don't pay for dropbox, therefore it will fail." The backup for this is "Dropbox is a feature, not a product." And "other companies that I have made this statement about have failed."
Somehow this isn't convincing for me at all.
My guess is that this is not necessarily the opinion of the writer, he was just given the task of writing a short article with a contrarian view on Dropbox.
I've often thought they need a lower tier than the $100/year option. I get a remarkable amount of value from Dropbox, but somehow knowing I'm only using < 20% of the free tier makes it psychologically difficult to justify paying them $100/yr. If there were an option to pay $20 or $30 or so for what I'm getting for free, I'd probably just do it. $100 is a little too far outside the no-brainer price range for me though... (I guess by the time you get to "9 digit acquisition offer" size, a "donate via Paypal" button would look pretty low-rent...)
Why would you pay for what they happily offer for free?
To make sure they stay in business? I think a lot of people are more than happy to pay for useful services just to keep them in business. As long as the utility is larger than the price charged transactions will be made.
One website I'm familiar with has a freemium product, lots of users there pay just to support the site, even if they never actually use the premium bits.
One website I'm familiar with has a freemium product, lots of users there pay just to support the site, even if they never actually use the premium bits.
Ok, why would you pay for Dropbox of you didn't have to and they didn't ask you to? They clearly are not going out of business, at least until something better comes along.
Who cares if it's a feature, not a product? The question is - is it a vertical or horizontal feature? You can't sell cut-and-paste, because there's no advantage in having the same cut and paste on every device (no horizontal advantage), and you'll lose out to the manufactures ability to bake deeply integrated cut-and-paste into the OS (big advantage for the vertical implementations). For file sync, there's not a huge need for vertical integration (OK, Erik Sink's written about how different platforms can be a PITA - http://www.ericsink.com/entries/quirky.html, but it's still possible if you have the resources and smarts); and you have a huge advantage over horizontal players, because people want their data safe on different devices.
There's a little company called Microsoft, which sold OSes. The OS is just a feature of computers. They had the chops to smooth over the vertical issues (drivers, etc), and got boosted by the horizontal advantages (your programs work on any computer with Windows). So the OS became a product, not a feature, because it carved out a large horizontal niche, blowing away the vertically integrated "features".
There's a little company called Microsoft, which sold OSes. The OS is just a feature of computers. They had the chops to smooth over the vertical issues (drivers, etc), and got boosted by the horizontal advantages (your programs work on any computer with Windows). So the OS became a product, not a feature, because it carved out a large horizontal niche, blowing away the vertically integrated "features".
> A feature is something that really belongs or can easily be built into something that already exists.
Such a loose definition that really can be bent to fit whatever point you want to make.
Forbes is a feature not a product, Apple could provide the content themselves and people would just get it on their iPhone, who needs a seperate company creating it?
Gmail is a feature not a product, it belongs in your phone's operating system or in a product such as MS Office.
Realistically feature vs. product is subjective, it is entirely down to whether users want to use a seperate service on an integrated one.
To move away from the web startup world, how about satnav systems as an example. We all know they can be built into cars, and that's been happening for a while, and for those cars that have them, it is certainly a feature of the car. That hasn't killed the companies selling dedicated systems, such as TomTom.
Or for computer hardware, speakers are really just a feature of your computer, not a seperate product, yet people still buy speakers that aren't a part of their PC, just connected to them.
Both these examples, it is possible to get them as features rather than products, but the demand for standalone products has kept them in existance.
Such a loose definition that really can be bent to fit whatever point you want to make.
Forbes is a feature not a product, Apple could provide the content themselves and people would just get it on their iPhone, who needs a seperate company creating it?
Gmail is a feature not a product, it belongs in your phone's operating system or in a product such as MS Office.
Realistically feature vs. product is subjective, it is entirely down to whether users want to use a seperate service on an integrated one.
To move away from the web startup world, how about satnav systems as an example. We all know they can be built into cars, and that's been happening for a while, and for those cars that have them, it is certainly a feature of the car. That hasn't killed the companies selling dedicated systems, such as TomTom.
Or for computer hardware, speakers are really just a feature of your computer, not a seperate product, yet people still buy speakers that aren't a part of their PC, just connected to them.
Both these examples, it is possible to get them as features rather than products, but the demand for standalone products has kept them in existance.
The great thing about Dropbox is that it is a feature. Why? Because it's decoupled from any other product - with iCloud, I have to buy into the OSX/iOS ecosystem, which even if I wanted to do, I can't afford. With Dropbox, their product has no reason not to support as many different OS as possible - so I can have a mac syncing with an Android, etc.
Given that Gartner estimated OSX as having only about 10% of the desk/laptop market share in 2011, the idea that Dropbox is going to be put out of business by iCloud is laughably ignorant. Unless Apple decides to make iCloud available to Windows users, but IMHO that seems unlikely.
The competition isn't much better on the MS side. Windows has the bulk of the desktop/laptop users, but it's pretty unlikely for them to offer a file sync client that'll work with the iPhone or Android, and Windows Phone 7 is still looking for an audience.
I do agree that Dropbox could do a lot to make their person-to-person sharing more compelling and easy.
The competition isn't much better on the MS side. Windows has the bulk of the desktop/laptop users, but it's pretty unlikely for them to offer a file sync client that'll work with the iPhone or Android, and Windows Phone 7 is still looking for an audience.
I do agree that Dropbox could do a lot to make their person-to-person sharing more compelling and easy.
You can use iCloud on Windows... Check the website.
Android? Linux? Why would I want to use a cloud service that I can't sync most of my devices on?
In those critical first few seconds where I am determining if I want to read further, and instead I have to battle text jumping around because of ads, it makes me wonder if anyone at Forbes cares about usability.
"There is also the question of how Dropbox is different from an online backup service available on a file-by-file basis across multiple machines. That is how I use Dropbox, only occasionally sharing files in Dropbox with friends and coworkers."
And with that I realized I had wasted my time reading this article. How can a journalist be so oblivious to the primary use case of a product?
And with that I realized I had wasted my time reading this article. How can a journalist be so oblivious to the primary use case of a product?
I use Dropbox as of today, but I would easily - already considered it - replace it with multiple alternatives. The valuation of Dropbox got me choking more than LinkedIn valuation; they aren't worth a fraction of that. Every reality-checked human on this planet knows that. They should have accepted Apples offer, I think Bitcasa will get it instead.
"(I should probably do a post explaining why Evernote is an application and Dropbox only a feature.)"
Yes, this would be great. A lot of this article seems to be based on the author's very loose and short definition of a feature, so I didn't really get a lot out of it. A comparison would help me better understand the point trying to be made here.
Yes, this would be great. A lot of this article seems to be based on the author's very loose and short definition of a feature, so I didn't really get a lot out of it. A comparison would help me better understand the point trying to be made here.
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If Dropbox solves this, they're golden: http://xkcd.com/949/
If they don't, they'll die.
If they don't, they'll die.
How about Ubuntu One? They have Ubuntu, Windows, iOS, and Android support plus 5 GB of free storage. Mac support doesn't exist yet, but hopefully it'll be coming soon:
https://one.ubuntu.com/
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Dropbox executed well. But where can Dropbox expand to? Unless dropbox can get better and better, eventually the competition will catch up.
Better device and product integration? That will require more and more cooperation from Windows, Apple, and Google.
Better device and product integration? That will require more and more cooperation from Windows, Apple, and Google.
It already supports Android, OSX, Linux, Windows...
I'd quite like it if they had Music syncing option, mind.
I'd quite like it if they had Music syncing option, mind.
Music syncing, etc. was what I was referring to. I don't think they'll flame out right away, but in 5 years, what will they have that doesn't ship with your OS?
"Dropbox" is becoming a verb. They need to keep that up, so people ask if their device has Dropbox, or more appropriately (if incorrectly), ask if it "can Dropbox?"
It is a feature, a service, but so is Netflix, and Dropbox isn't encumbered by movie studios. They just have the neat "whoa this is almost magic" part.
It is a feature, a service, but so is Netflix, and Dropbox isn't encumbered by movie studios. They just have the neat "whoa this is almost magic" part.
It already supports Android, OSX, Linux, Windows...
He's correct. Eventually Apple and Microsoft will replace dropbox with tiny, tiny, tiny branches in their codebases. Unless they come up with a different product, that's their fate.
Box.net is giving away 50GB to anyone that signs up or logs in through their mobile app. It's an amazing service but Steve Jobs is right when he says it's a feature.
Box.net's dropbox-like sync program for desktops is a paid account only feature too. And your limited to small file sizes. It guts the usefulness of that 50GB.
iCloud is useless to anyone not exclusively using Apple products. How are they even a threat right now?
Dropbox is only a 'feature' if you already have everything else, an operating system, and an installed base of a large number of devices.
But dropbox the product, not dropbox the feature is what exists today.
Seamless filesharing at an affordable pricepoint (including a free tier) across all devices and across all major operating systems, including linux, apple and windows. And that includes versioning and so on.
So it isn't a feature.
Don't forget that the universe of computing is far larger than any single operating system, no matter how successful, and that this will likely always be the case.
Dropbox is infrastructure, not a feature. And it's fine to run infrastructure, you can actually charge for it and people will pay. See also: toll roads, ISPs, the petroleum industry, your power company and so on.
Commoditizing the essence of storage wasn't such a bad idea at all, and to turn it into a product, not just a feature is what gives it long term viability.
Forbes being a print magazine I'd bet good money that Forbes the print edition will die long before dropbox.
Besides dropbox having about 250 million factors in the equation helping it to stay alive a little longer Forbes writing about it in two different places on one day will help dropbox just that much more. There is no such thing as bad advertising. Plenty of the Forbes visitors reading this might think, ok, dropbox is going to die, but until then this is mighty handy.