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0 pointseindiran5y ago0 comments

This is my point exactly: Dropbox isn't a super obvious niche. The top-rated comment from the release on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

> I have a few qualms with this app:

> For a Linux user, 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. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

Now that Dropbox is a unicorn (and there are dozens of other competing products, some of them unicorns in their own right), it's easy to pass this off as an obvious idea. But plenty of people at the time thought it was a bad bet.

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Retric5y ago

And that exact poster changed his mind when presented with more information it’s directly below it. You are correct that this presents a very good, easy-to-install piece of functionality for Windows users. The Windows shortcomings that you point out are certainly problems, and I think that your software does a good job of overcoming that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9479

As Windows was by far the largest OS at the time the user was acknowledging a very clear market. Personally I described the niche as a source code repository for regular people several years before, but I thought the UI was going to be the issue. Their first demo more or less nailed it.

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