[braythwayt]

A bit of a tangent, but it feels to me like using wads of funding to try to create hypergrowth is a good fit for "winner-take-all" markets, like those with network effects.

Social media fits. Syncing documents, maybe not-so-much.

So Dropbox invests in areas where there are possible network effects, like collaborating on documents. Because that's what fits its funding model.

But simple file syncing... This is not a winner-take-all market.

[cloverich]

> But simple file syncing... This is not a winner-take-all market.

On its own, probably not. But you could imagine several avenues they could naturally grow into, that would _eventually_ turn them into the equivalent of a full OS. Its not something I would personally bet on, but also not something that, if it worked out, would totally surprise me. E.g. maybe _they_ should have invented Google Docs, and then...

[braythwayt]

As a customer, this is a problem for me.

——

Analogy: I offer to cut your lawn every week, and to shovel your driveway/walk when it snows, all for an annual fee you find attractive.

I get a lot pf customers, put together a pitch deck, then raise a bunch of money to expand.

With the money, I buy a fleet of massive snowplows, trucks that can carry ride’em mowers, equipment for doing landscaping, and while I’m at it, I start up a property management company that specializes in AirBnB owners.

“Sorry,” I tell you, “But I have to raise my fees, your property is too small for me to take a advantage of my equipment, and Also it’s inefficient to have lots of small customers so I’m tacking on a per-invoice surcharge.”

Lawn-cutting can indeed grow into a bigger business, and for me, that’s great. But for you, maybe the best thing would be to hire a teenager who is happy cutting lawns for a decent price.

Summary: If a company is in business A, but it isn’t happy doing A and really wants to do B, C, and D to satisfy its investors’ ambitions, that may be an excellent play for the company, but a terrible play for its existing customers.

[Apocryphon]

Sounds like what UpThere was working on. They ended up bought by Western Digital.