[hackcrafter]

Were those not acquisitions that withered as opposed to Dropbox new product ventures?

To be honest, I read through that whole page and I really am not sure I understand what "Paper" is.

I'm guessing it's like slack + specialized components (lists/document snippets) and file sharing designed around collaborating on a product or more generally a project...

[mikenew]

Mailbox was an acquisition. Carousel was launched by Dropbox, but it came out of their acquisition of Snapjoy.

The problem wasn't simply that they shuttered the services (particularly Mailbox), it was how they did it. Mailbox spent about a year with development completely stagnated. Essential features like searching were broken and Dropbox's response was "we're refactoring! Don't worry, big updates coming soon, please be patient!" And that went on right up until they said "Okay bye!"

Services get shut down. It sucks, but it happens. But stringing your customers along for a year knowing perfectly well that your product is not being worked on is pretty awful.

[ukd1]

Paper is a cross between a wiki and a google doc. It was based on https://hackpad.com/ from what I heard!

[asidiali]

Dropbox actually bought Hackpad and this is the fruit of that acquisition.

[coldtea]

Hackpad, otoh, which I've used for years, is nothing like a wiki and more like a half arsed google doc.

[tomkin]

>> Were those not acquisitions that withered as opposed to Dropbox new product ventures?

This is one of those distinctions without a difference.

[whywhywhywhy]

>Were those not acquisitions that withered as opposed to Dropbox new product ventures?

Why on earth should that make any difference to the end user? Bottom line is they shipped them and then canned them.