I understand that nobody likes a race towards the bottom with regard to pricing, but IMO Dropbox is playing their pricing a little over confidently right now given what competitors are offering.
In both the comments on HN and the original thread pricing keeps coming up.
And the response is that this is a great product and pricing is acceptable.
I don't think so.
Businesses switching costs are MUCH higher than consumer.
EG to switch a business service lots of co's have to incorporate multiple stakeholders, decision makers, etc.
Which is why VC's pour buckets of money into proven SAAS models around business services - because businesses stick almost no matter what!
So is DropBox's pricing scheme out of line with their potential to grown more quickly?
In my experience from the consumer perspective I am actively seeking alternatives to DropBox due to their current pricing.
I was an average 100GB user very happy with the product for years.
Then I had kids.
And BOOM I have a million pictures, videos, etc that are PRICELESS to me.
And now I'm on a $600/year plan for 500 GB / mo.
And Google drive is now offering 2x as much storage as that for $10/month.
So 20% of the cost for twice as much.
I gotta say it is very compelling and I can't believe that the GOOG product a few iterations out isn't a direct comparable.
Dropbox's pricing is making this very loyal consumer unhappy, and seems like especially WRT to handling business users they should be aggressively pricing to own the market.
> I was an average 100GB user very happy with the product for years. Then I had kids. And BOOM I have a million pictures, videos, etc that are PRICELESS to me.
That sounds more like you need a backup service than a sync-things-conveniently-to-all-your-computers service.
You wouldn't expect a convenience store chain to be competitive in the market Costco operates in; they're two different kinds of business, serving two different kinds of needs. Convenience stores can get away with charging a lot more for e.g. soda than Costco, because Costco won't sell you exactly one bottle of soda.
Just as well, you shouldn't expect Dropbox to be competitive in the consumer digital archival storage market. (Though they could certainly branch out there, it's currently just not the market they serve.)
There is a benefit to the business if they can keep the price high by staying the market leader. If they lower their prices to compete the type of problems they will have to deal with in inherently different.
In both the comments on HN and the original thread pricing keeps coming up.
And the response is that this is a great product and pricing is acceptable.
I don't think so.
Businesses switching costs are MUCH higher than consumer.
EG to switch a business service lots of co's have to incorporate multiple stakeholders, decision makers, etc.
Which is why VC's pour buckets of money into proven SAAS models around business services - because businesses stick almost no matter what!
So is DropBox's pricing scheme out of line with their potential to grown more quickly?
In my experience from the consumer perspective I am actively seeking alternatives to DropBox due to their current pricing.
I was an average 100GB user very happy with the product for years.
Then I had kids.
And BOOM I have a million pictures, videos, etc that are PRICELESS to me.
And now I'm on a $600/year plan for 500 GB / mo.
And Google drive is now offering 2x as much storage as that for $10/month.
So 20% of the cost for twice as much.
I gotta say it is very compelling and I can't believe that the GOOG product a few iterations out isn't a direct comparable.
Dropbox's pricing is making this very loyal consumer unhappy, and seems like especially WRT to handling business users they should be aggressively pricing to own the market.