alt Hacker NewsAmazing Dropbox went from a brilliantly simple service to this stagnating corporate swamp of ooze. Yet another fascinating example of how headcount correlates with quality decline.
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We loved Dropbox and had a family subscription. One of the main reasons we stopped using them (besides it being a US company and Trump threatening declare war to a fellow European NATO ally) was that even though we were paying users, they continuously badgered us with upsells. Using Maestral as a client made things better (at the loss of block-level sync + now unmaintained), but every time I had to log into the web interface I got stupid upsell ads.
I once contacted their customer support about this and their answer was "Oh really? Can you send some examples?" So I sent them screenshots of all the upselling banners, popups, etc. that they showed and I never heard back from them.
It also didn't make sense at all. Why, if I'm using Dropbox for family use, would I upgrade to a business plan?
The pricing got very complicated, that part is true. On the other hand, service quality didn’t go down. They added many small features which makes things easier, on the other hand.
I use a bunch of additional services they offer. They work well, make me spend less money and save my time (e.g.: send, transcription, advanced sharing controls).