That comment has gotten a bum rap over the years. The commenter was trying to be helpful with Dropbox's YC application (that's what "app" meant on HN in 2007). Back then, file synchronization was widely thought to be a solution-in-search-of-a-problem. I've been trying for years to get people to understand this (starting at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229275, then https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), even though I know you can't argue with the internet.

The comment only became infamous years later [1, 2], after Dropbox was clearly a success—so this is a case of hindsight. If people would only read all three comments, instead of stopping at the first, they'd see that the exchange was pleasant and successful [3]. But a meme is more fun. It didn't exist, so it had to be invented! [4]

Compare that with the other infamous-HN-comment-from-2007, "did you win the Putnam" [5], which got pilloried in real time. No hindsight fallacy there!

If the hivemind had empathy (which alas it does not), people would stop to consider how they'd feel about getting publicly mocked over decades for something they posted with good intentions at age 22 [6]. Alas, this is how the internet works—not much we can do about it. It's amazing, though, what a good sport BrandonM has been about it all this time. That part of the story is actually real, so we should celebrate that too.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6138488 (August 2013, i.e. 6 years later) seems to be the earliest reference on HN itself.

[2] April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625306 (Oct 2013)

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9272 from Drew, and then https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9479

[4] https://www.whitman.edu/VSA/trois.imposteurs.html

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079, but don't miss the witty and graceful concession (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35350)

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16661824