[ianstormtaylor]

The way Dropbox has mismanaged Paper over the past decade, and squandered so many opportunities in the productivity tools space, has been one of the most frustrating things to watch.

Dropbox bought Hackpad and launched Dropbox Paper a decade ago!

Paper was awesome at launch — so much less friction than Google Docs for teams back then — and had a good internal product team behind it, but leadership failed to see the potential. I think it's because the Dropbox founders were so consumer-focused that they couldn't envision how huge Paper could be in the productivity tools space. They kept framing it as an Evernote competitor, instead of seeing it turning into something like Notion.

Even when they finally seemed to understand that Dropbox was never going to be a B2C sensation, they kept acquiring "side product" businesses instead of ones that built on Dropbox's existing value. (To their credit, this was the zeitgeist back when they started — B2B was not cool at all, and the sort of B2C/B hybrid that exists now wasn't a thing.)

Meanwhile startups like Notion actually saw the opportunity and blossomed. And nowadays, even super-slow Google is releasing features like pageless mode, markdown support, etc. Such that Paper is almost irrelevant at this point, despite having had such a massive head start.

It's sad because I can easily imagine an alternate future where Dropbox understood what Paper could be, and invested in it alongside things like an Airtable competitor, to create a truly viable, and forward-looking alternative to Google Docs/Sheets/Drive, without all the baggage of being a Microsoft Office clone.

[Spooky23]

"Thanks for subscribing to Dropbox Pro ianstormtaylor! Would you like to upgrade to Dropbox for Enterprise?"

"Thanks for sharing a file, ianstormtaylor, Dropbox for Business will do some bullshit"

Dropbox was a great product, but a shit company. They have a software platform and core technology that for B2B would readily displace high dollar stuff like managed file transfer and had a good early API that many apps took advantage of. I had a great experience working with them to capture shadow IT use of the product and get it in a managed environment.

But the relentless nagging, even of paying customers, is unserious and stupid. I wouldn't touch the product with a 10 foot pole.

[nolok]

Their unsubscribe process could be a study in dark patterns. It is so, so hostile ...

[figassis]

Dropbox saw that the only B2C path for a company like them was to become Box, and they did not like it. Also, we kept criticizing Dropbox for moving away from a "folder that syncs".

I agree with a folder that syncs. Today I use dropbox, but I do my best to avoid interacting with it, because just clicking on the menubar icon makes me upset that no feature there is what I actually need. No sensible ignore rules, etc.

But I could have been wrong and focusing on dropbox was not the only path. But even if it wasn't, they fumbled every promising product they could. I mean, Mailbox, they pioneered (read acquired) the email swipe UX, then killed it.

Then there was that launch where they hyped some iCloud sync service that would allow apps to store settings and game states, etc. Whatever happened to that?

Today I'm so afraid that dropbox's more daring products will die faster than Google can retire theirs, that I simply do not use it for anything other than a folder than syncs where I can share links. And now that I think about it, it's been a while since I had to share a single link, so maybe I can just move to synching.

[xp84]

> only B2C path for a company like them was to become Box

What does this mean? I used Box once in about 2011 at work (before Google and MS got serious with their "Drive" features my company had paid for Box) and my impression was actually "this is like if Dropbox were built by Oracle" -- worse than Dropbox in every way, both usability and performance, but with some corporate-tailored features. As a consumer, I would never have dreamed of switching to Box.

So that's why I'm curious what you mean by the comment with respect to B2C.

[figassis]

I mean exactly what you experienced. They did not go the enterprise way bc they did not want to become Box. They didn't think they could provide a good UX if they focused on enterprise.

[guelo]

They're not even a "folder that syncs" anymore, at least on android if you make a folder "available offline" (which should be the default to begin with) it stores it internally to the dropbox app where it can't be accessed by other apps. There is another button "Save to device", but that's just a one-time snapshot of the file that won't stay in sync. I deleted my account after they pulled that enshitification.

[f33d5173]

I am fairly certain that this was forced on them by google rather than a deliberate choice. Syncthing and other apps were put in the same position.

[Hovertruck]

Yeah, Dropbox Paper remains the best pure writing experience I've ever used at work. I think Notion has a lot of nice features, but just writing in it still feels more cumbersome than Paper did a decade ago.

[ianstormtaylor]

I completely agree. Paper was so frictionless that you could actually use it as a tool to think and sketch ideas with. Instead of Notion which feels clunky just to type in.

[hibikir]

Stripe used to live and dir internally off of hackpad with some custom search engine attached to it. It was all binned after the Atlassianfication, but I don't think many devs saw the move away as positive.

[SmellTheGlove]

Oh man, hackpad brings back memories. It was so simple. I liked Paper for the same reason.

[catoc]

In my experience Dropbox is actually really good at syncing data between devices.

It’s fast. It’s way more reliable than iCloud, and for “simply” keeping folders in sync just “simply” the best - for simple user requirements simplicity and reliability are key. Did I stress ‘simple’ enough? Maybe I should stress it Latin? Simplex veri sigillum.

I hope they stick to their core business.

[aurareturn]

Side note: Why do people like Notion? I just can't get into it. It feels like every time I type, some autocomplete thing pops up and stops my typing. I just went back to the good old Notes app.

[the_bear]

As someone who switched from Dropbox Paper to Notion...

There's no question that Paper is a better pure writing experience. If you're viewing Notion as just a note-taking app and nothing else, I think you're misunderstanding what it's for.

For starters, it's way easier to organize stuff in Notion than Paper. This is less a feature of Notion, and more of a terrible limitation of Paper. Paper was stuck with the "files within folders" model. Just the fact that Notion lets you control what shows up in the navigation sidebar was a huge time saver for me. And being able to create pages within pages within pages (which is very different from having sibling documents inside a folder) made it much more flexible for organizing everything.

But the real power of Notion is when you start to treat it as a database builder rather than a note-taking tool. Yes, it's useful for taking notes, but those notes are about something, and with tools like Paper, Obsidian, etc., the thing is always living somewhere else.

With Notion, I was able to make a database of projects and another database of tasks which linked to those projects. Each developer on my team has a custom dashboard showing just the tasks that are assigned to them and currently in-progress. I have a totally different view showing all the projects going on right now. And then each of those tasks have a pretty good (I admit it's not great) note-taking feature. The notes are living within the actual object you're taking notes about, which is totally different from Paper.

I even use Notion for personal stuff. I have a Notion form that my wife and I use to enter things we need to buy next time we're at the store. And there's a view showing the things we need to buy from each separate store with checkboxes next to each one so it's easy to remove them when we're done. There's a separate database listing the movies we want to watch, with a view for all the ones we previously watched, and when. I have a database of cocktail recipes along with ingredient lists (so I can easily filter by ingredient), formulas to calculate different volumes based on how many drinks you're making, a rating system, etc.

Basically, if you look at Notion as a bucket of unstructured notes with a markdown editor, I agree, it's nothing special. But that's not what it really is.

[mvdtnz]

I have tried several times - real genuine multi-week efforts - but I'm with you. It never worked for me. I can see potential in there but it's just too much, for too little in return.

[cosmic_cheese]

Edit mode by default is what makes Notion grating for me. Way too easy to unintentionally modify org docs. It badly needs an edit mode toggle button.

[austinl]

It's possible to lock pages in Notion (from the ... menu on the page), which prevents editing without unlocking. Most org-level pages in our workspace are locked. People also typically lock project pages after they ship, for example.

[echelon]

Notion feels like Python transpiled to React, brought to you by the Atlassian Jira team.

I do not enjoy it at all, and I hope Obsidian eats their lunch.

[dtkav]

I'm with you. I've been working on making Obsidian great for work with real-time collaboration, SSO, and the ability to have fully private document collaboration [0].

Performance aside, it's crazy that in the age of Claude Code people don't insist on having their docs local, private, and in markdown.

[0] https://relay.md

[jitl]

So far the Obsidian folks don’t seem interested in our lunch ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[drdrey]

Easy sharing, easy to make pages public, good syntax highlighting, decent search.

[a0123]

Here is the thing: Dropbox has no business being anything other than a cloud storage solution. Stop trying to do everything, it's too difficult and too expensive. Find what you're great at, and just improve it little by little. Stop adding shit.

Never, ever used any additional Dropbox services. All I need it to do is be a reliable cloud storage. Nothing else.

[doctorpangloss]

Okay… but then Google Drive is cheaper and has all these other features, so I switched to it, and stopped paying Dropbox, so I guess you’re wrong?

[Mistletoe]

Lower the price below Google Drive and be better at being Google Drive than Google is. It wouldn't be that hard. You wouldn't need to be more expensive if you weren't pissing money away on acquisitions no one wants all the time.

[doctorpangloss]

ah yes, make your product cheaper than the same thing from company that has the greatest number of free software offerings with the largest user bases in the world

[typpilol]

Dropbox has one key advantage.

Block based syncing.

[hs86]

Didn't Google add this in October 2024: https://support.google.com/a/answer/7577057?hl=en

The changelog states: "Added support for “differential” uploads. When large files are edited, Drive for desktop will now upload only the parts of the file that changed."

[typpilol]

If they did I'm jumping ship. Was literally my only reason for staying on Dropbox

[everfrustrated]

TIL. For some reason I thought Drive for Desktop was discontinued years ago. Nice to see the regular updates.

[Wowfunhappy]

Okay, but let's say Google implements that. Than Dropbox is toast, right?

It's such a shame, because I absolutely believe that simpler products which focus on one thing and do it well are basically always a better user experience (and I personally try to use them wherever possible). But I think the business case is hard.

[typpilol]

If they did I'll switch to Google. It's the only reason I use Dropbox over others like OneDrive.

[mvdtnz]

You have no business telling anyone what their business is. Dropbox has "business" doing whatever they want to try to make great products, achieve their mission and turn over some cash.

[eviks]

How is it your business telling other people what to say? Isn't it similarly "whatever they want"?

[dylan604]

> Paper was awesome at launch — so much less friction than Google Docs for teams back then

Except that you had to have everyone use a Dropbox account. So if you are already in bed with Google as a company, adding Dropbox for everyone might not be such a fun idea.

[cben]

Conversely, when you already collaborate with people in Dropbox, mainly via files, having real time co-editable docs under same folder with same sharing was nice, esp. for people who never remember where they put stuff :-)

Integration was not perfect, but it does create a json .paper file containing a url. But at least it makes you aware the doc exists every time you look at the folder.

Alas, with Paper desktop & mobile apps being deprecated, that's increasingly useless :-( Will the main app at least take over the ability to [double-]click these .paper docs to open them in a browser?

[steviedotboston]

I loved the original hackpad. I used it for personal task management at a time when I was really struggling to keep on task at a job.

[varenc]

RIP Paper

[Apocryphon]

The revenge of BrandonM...

[MonkeyClub]

In case anyone else also has to look it up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067281