It's rough. The app is full of crap like this, it's not the first time it's caught my mom - an educated person! There was smart sync (different than "selective sync") being toggled on by default on new installs, which was horrible. Files that don't open! Bad engineering, bad product design. There are the blocking notifications and prompts. The defaulting to show the Dropbox app instead of Finder. That's just in the last two months.
I asked Dropbox CS people to "disable product management." I joked in that thread that they were aspiring to be "anti-mom."
I liked Dropbox, it was basically perfect in 2012, it's why I pay for it so consistently, why I've gifted subs to people, why they keep paying, etc.
Drew, why are you ruining your product?
That aside, remember when Steve Jobs personally replied to people's emails? There is no process for a normal person to connect with a real decision maker at giant tech companies anymore. It's the most foreboding development in the tech industry. Delegating stuff like this to social media is bad management, and Paul Graham should be apoplectic that despite all of these dark patterns, Dropbox shares are still not trading above their IPO price. It's bad business sense, it's bad product. It's just bad.
I feel bad, sort of, to need to part ways with a tool that was once so useful and clever. OTOH, good riddance!
:)
Onedrive 1TB family tier works well.
The only part of Dropbox palatable nowadays is the desktop sync, which still is pretty invisible. I can’t even open .org files as plaintext in the Dropbox iOS app right now. The same app opens to a default pane not of my files but of Dropbox paper files, a product I’ve never used ever.
I renewed my Dropbox membership this past year mainly out of laziness: but not next. It’s fairly clear Dropbox doesn’t care for me as a customer.
I've just moved to iCloud Drive now they offer shared folders, but then I only share stuff with family members so this is straightforward.
Shame as I used to love Dropbox.
Dropbox used to be great and blew all their competitors out of the water. At the time their syncing speed was incredible and UI great. Nowadays not so much because they have added non-core features and dilly-dallied on features that people don't really use.
Would love to chat anytime.
Timothy at dropbox.com
It would be nice if Dropbox invested heavily in its own PDF viewer and allowed the user to easily opt out (or opt out by default) of things like Adobe or Microsoft integrations.
Financially, Dropbox depends on business users, so integrations like that (for e-signatures, Office integration, etc.) help sell it into businesses.
There was a story on Slashdot years before Dropbox was conceived describing how Ray Ozzie was going to build integrated shared folders into Windows. This was in the days when things like Zip drives were not yet obsoleted, and it seemed visionary.
So I was surprised and pleased when YC funded Drew because Microsoft never did anything with Ozzie's vision. Early Dropbox was elegant and simple, as Drew intended.
I think this is a case where adding Adobe integration is like how Adobe installs McAfee by default, etc. Referral programs to generate revenue because the freemium product is not generating enough to keep investors happy.
I would not be surprised if Drew was irritated that Adobe had to be bundled into the product.
But let's also note that Drew has been very pragmatic and hired neocon hawk and Iraq war architect Condi Rice for the board in an attempt to secure government contracts.
I think Dropbox did a great job with Sync and I like the filesystem extension idea, it just needs a bit more refinement. SmartSync has worked very well for me and I think turning it on by default is the obvious correct choice.
Early 2020 my wife's Dropbox subscription was up, and we switched her over to Synology Drive for everything but kept Dropbox around for the few free gigabytes it offers.
This past week we got a new kitchen computer, and it was the first machine that we've purchased in a decade that did not get Dropbox installed on it. And probably in the next month or two, we're going to be quietly uninstalling Dropbox from all of our other computers too.
Goodbye Dropbox, it was nice knowing you, but beyond basic file sync, all the new bells and whistles have added absolutely nothing of value for our family but you sure love charging us hundreds of dollars of year to look after (poorly) a small amount of data.
I found the price point for me, I'm a clever like that
For big ass folders and files I use syncthing, tho.
While iCloud isn't as neat as 2012 Dropbox, it's better than good enough. I haven't reinstalled Dropbox.
I sympathize.