by Jason Snell
How Dropbox remains relevant
A nice piece from Khoi Vinh about the power and utility of Dropbox:
We think of Dropbox as a service for synching our directories, but the real value they bring is in applying a level of thoughtfulness that no one really applied to files before. A lot of that is part and parcel with storing this stuff in the cloud, which affords many user benefits—including availability of one’s files to countless third-party apps. But a lot of it is very particular to Dropbox’s superb design of the user experience. Even as the clock is surely ticking for file management—I can’t imagine we’ll still navigating directory structures in a decade, or even in five years—the company proves that attention to real user problems matters more than aging interaction models. This highly considerate, well-timed and pitch perfect email attests to that; and as it happens, I did change my mind this morning and decided to restore those directories I had deleted.
I pay $99/year for Dropbox and find it indispensable for storing files, sharing files with collaborators, and accessing files on my other devices. I wish I was storing more than 42 GB on it, though.