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Dropbox Founder Wants To Build the Next Google
ColdWetDog writes "The Dropbox file storage and synchronization service has managed to attract 50 million users and $250 million in venture capital. The founder of Dropbox, Drew Houston, says he is determined to build the next Google or Apple, not to sell out to them. Even for a guy whose paper valuation is around $600 million, it seems like the best he could hope for is another Facebook-level company — file storage isn't that sexy. I wish him luck in his bid to remain independent. I'd rather see Dropbox remain fairly agnostic with regard to other Internet services."
A little paranoid? He's not wrong.
Check out Kinects terms of service, and what they can do - by default, you agree to let them use pictures taken by the device of you using it in advertising. This is a CAMERA IN YOUR TV WATCHING YOU USE IT.
Smartphones... Were you around for the CarrierIQ debacle? Independent auditing of the code in these portable, always on, always connected devices just isn't going to happen, and even if there are people with morals inside the companies making these devices its not going to be hard for the bad guys to sneak a back door into millions of lines of code. And on a whole other level they're trying to sneak back doors into cryptographic standards(I forget the details, use google, this stuff is all out there)
Now we're being asked to rely on companies giving us access to great big machines in the sky - to trust that these companies aren't watching and recording every single action, that those actions aren't being analysed and aggregated, and most importantly of all - they won't ditch you like a hot potato and leave you high and dry when you find something so wrong you can't walk away from it. Look how all those companies ditched wikileaks.
Secret FISA requests? Indefinite detention? This guy isn't paranoid - thats the fucking scary thing.
"Dropbox just resells Amazon's S3 storage service. They have a slicker interface, but the heavy lifting is all done by Amazon."
Which is a very clever side of the Amazon's bussiness case.
Amazon surely bills a little bazillion to the likes of Dropbox or Netflix, so as long as the "new thing" happens to deal with them, the more successful they are, the more money ends up in Amazon's accounts.
But then, for each Netflix there are a thousand of wannabies that all will do is losing their shirts -but even them will move part of their money to Amazon's accounts.
So the end result is that Amazon wins always without taking the risks.
Very clever indeed.
I'm a Wuala user myself, so perhaps I've overlooked something - but how does Dropbox hope to earn money? By selling additional disk space or turning the free accounts into paid ones once people begin to rely on them?
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)