[msoad]

The bigger story is that Dropbox is trending down in general. Look at Google Trends[1] for Dropbox searches. I used to have files. But now I don't really have any files. I use Spotify for music. A collection of streaming services for movies and shows. Google Photos for my photos. Google Docs for storing my spreadsheets and "word" documents and Google Drive to dump some useful PDF files. I don't pay for any storage service anymore.

World has changed since Dropbox came out and it has become less relevant. In my case it is completely irrelevant.

[1]https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Dropbox

[tim333]

On the other hand

"The service hit 100 million users in November 2012, 200 million in November 2013, 300 million in May 2014, and 400 million in June 2015." and 500 million in Mar 16.

So still growing merrily. Also the shared folder connections have gone from 1.3bn end 2014 to 3.3 billion recently.

They are changing focus from personal file storage to enterprise collaboration stuff which may be why there is less on google trends, perhaps.

>That’s one of the big evolutions in terms of what people are doing when they have a platform like ours, going from access into connections and a huge collaboration network.

>The second big evolution has been the evolution from being an end-user tool into an enterprise tool

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/2016/03/11/dropbo...

[state]

What I really want is a Dropbox for all that structured data. I understand I can't really 'capture' Spotify, but I want some where I can actually put this stuff to work. IFTTT soft of captures this sentiment, but it's not nearly as powerful as the filesystem. It's like pipes with out a hard drive.

It's interesting to consider whether you could apply part of the Dropbox approach to streams of data. Having them singularly controlled by the service you get them from strikes me as sort of limiting and underpowered. But hey, I'm in the minority. I like building stuff and feeling in control of the content I create — even that which gets created passively or implicitly.

[andrewstuart2]

We should really stop looking to Google Trends to infer the popularity of a subject (something I've been guilty of as well!). The number of searches can't be completely correlated to the popularity, because as word-of-mouth and general knowledge of a service builds, the more likely people are to go directly to that service and not perform a Google search.

Additionally, Google trend numbers are relative to all historic search activity. As Google's market share changes over time, that's likely to impact what Trends shows as well, skewing the correlation with subject popularity even further.

[toomuchtodo]

Let's try a different method then. Is Dropbox's valuation in line with their business fundamentals? Supposedly, no:

https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/dropbox-valuation-bubble/

[jmathai]

Dropbox's recent gamble and failure with Carousel has to be a big blow. Especially considering how successful Google Photos has been so far.

When they launched Carousel I had hopes that they'd really capture the market [1]. But nearly 2 years later I think Google ended up out Carouseling Dropbox [2].

[1] https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-carousel-e5a...

[2] https://medium.com/@jmathai/my-automated-photo-workflow-usin...

[themartorana]

Google Photos is so far and away technically superior that Carousel just got out-competed. I was a Carousel user (after Adobe Revel and a bunch of other "store them all here for one price" services) and none had caused the fundamental shift in photo storage thinking (for me) that Google Photos does.

I just wish they'd charge me something. Free services scare me (yes I know they're data mining my photos).

[jmathai]

I pay for Google Drive where my Google Photos are stored. They probably still mine my data, I'm sure.