[pen2l]

I would be soooooo happy if I got to see the code that began it. Does it happen to available anywhere?

[imron]

According to the original comments "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."

[speedplane]

I remember that comment vividly, and love it. What better example of tech not understanding design and product-market fit?

[puranjay]

I see similar comments on virtually every ShowHN thread. "You can just take these 5 extra steps and do it yourself! This product will fail"

Somehow, HN seldom seems to grasp that people are inherently lazy and any solution that cuts work for them will find at least a few takers.

[imron]

They also fail to grasp that the know-how and ability of a technically minded person is different from most people who use computers.

My mum can use Dropbox. She could not set up an ftp account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS with it.

[zimpenfish]

> HN seldom seems to grasp that people are inherently lazy

I would dispute "inherently lazy" in favour of "have better things to spend their time on than crafting a personal solution to an already solved problem".

[deadbunny]

Basically most HN comments on new products then.

[albedoa]

That guy still posts here. In one of his most recent comments [1] he says "it's not all that hard to file your own taxes the old-fashioned way" and that it takes him "a full 12-16 hours (a solid day or two on a weekend)" :D Is he a long gimmick?

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924397

[amelius]

But the "innovative" part is that Dropbox hacked into the OSX kernel to achieve better integration. See e.g. [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12463338

[ryanlol]

All you need is a nice quick python wrapper for that and you've got a business :)

[briandear]

Yes.. a a quick python script to market and sell it!

[andai]

Haha, I'd pay for that!

[imron]

So would tens of millions of dropbox users.

[kuschku]

And that’s still true today. You can combine git with a file syncing system via FTP, SCP or WebDAV, and you get... SeaFile.

[justboxing]

Not sure about the code, but here's the original Demo Video Drew had on their getdropbox.com landing page. It presents the features in a very entertaining way :)

[ Sep 15th 2008 ] DropBox Demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE

[PKop]

This is one of the best product demo's I've seen. The product is just so fully formed, even back in 2008. Really is presented as "it just works".

"Why do you keep sending me this crap" without comment, made me lol.

[TeMPOraL]

This video is really great. Lots of easter eggs - including the contents of the pictures and the Dropbox Trade Secrets folder (I laughed hard at "Pets.com Executive Summary.pdf").

[tyingq]

If you can find an old version of the dropbox client, someone did document how to decrypt and decompile it back to python source.

https://github.com/kholia/dedrop