[phoobahr]

"when Dropbox was announced"

This. Whenever someone quips "that's a feature not a product" the reply should be "so why were they able to ship this feature and you weren't". Technical debt, opportunity cost(s), mission focus are all opportunities for arbitrage.

[ipaddr]

I think the discussion was always sure you can release a feature product and find success. One you reach a certain level bigger players will incorporate your features and you will cease to exist.

Being able to breakout of that feature product into an expanded ecosystem before your product becomes a feature of a bigger platform is the real end game.