There is a lot of useful things you can do with file storage. You can build plenty of products that synergize with Dropbox. Dropbox is failing to execute on these ideas. I was using Dropbox Carousel, now I use Google Photo. I wanted to use Dropbox Mailbox, but it was killed shortly after. Dropbox mobile app so bad that I needed to buy dedicated app to listen my music on Smartphone. They introduced computer backup in 2020! You still can sync only one folder!
They chase after an enterprise consumer but this would put them into direct competition with Microsoft, a fight that they cannot win.
I don’t think they can chase the consumer market either though - it’s too competitive.
Both iPhone and Android have support for cloud sync baked into their operating system as a core feature for their own service.
The issue with things like Carousel or Google Photos is that the sync is actually a fairly small part of the engineering effort - the hard part is making an amazing photo viewing and editing app which with mobile devices includes the end to end user flow from your mobile phone camera! Google photos and iPhoto make a little more sense as products when you consider that these are really about viewing the photos you took on your Apple/google device and providing native sync from their camera app. I’m not sure what Dropbox’s long term competitive advantage could be in the space from a corporate strategy perspective.
Dropbox had direct sync with camera app it worked better than Google photo sync. Over years, you accumulate multiple GB of just photos. I got my Google One subscription because of that. Once people star buying storage from google/apple there would be no point to buy any of Dropbox offering. I am only paying for Dropbox because there is no good Linux alternative.
> Dropbox had direct sync with camera app it worked better than Google photo sync.
Still has. It's called "Camera Upload" now.
> Once people star buying storage from google/apple there would be no point to buy any of Dropbox offering.
I think secure erase, transfers, file requests, "Apps" and OS independence is worthy of the price they ask for. Also on-demand sync on other OSes and other small features increase their value in my eyes a lot.
They chase after an enterprise consumer but this would put them into direct competition with Microsoft, a fight that they cannot win.