Dropbox said it plans to slash one-fifth of its global workforce, or 528 employees, as it looks to make the business more efficient.
In a letter to the company Wednesday, the software company Chief Executive Drew Houston cited a challenging consumer environment weighing on its core business, but also an inefficient business operation. “We continue to see softening demand and macro headwinds in our core business. But external factors are only part of the story. We’ve heard from many of you that our organizational structure has become overly complex, with excess layers of management slowing us down,” Houston said.
I know layoffs are common in most industries, including the tech industry. Usually, this would not concern me. However, this article piqued my interest and concern because I must use Dropbox to sync Scrivener, the app I’m using for my book project. I’m tempted to export my work from Scrivener to iA Writer and complete the remaining chapters in iA Writer. After the manuscript is ready for an editor, I can export it to Word.
If I make this move, I’ll lose Scrivener’s robust organizational capabilities and have to redo many citations. I’m not sure it is worth the trouble to move my writing, but I would gain the advantage of a cleaner writing environment and no longer have to deal with the hassle of Dropbox syncing. I should add that I’m using iA Writer for all of my writing except for the book and formal documents that need good design. Moving the book to iA Writer would further consolidate my writing workflow.
Dropbox has 700 million registered users and more than 18 million of them pay for the service. Last year they brought in $2.5 billion. They don’t own their own data centers. Their servers are in commercial data centers so they should be able to scale up, or down, with demand.
IMO, they aren’t likely to disappear without warning. And as long as you have a good back up plan, you are not going to lose any data.
And, not a good practice to “backup” to Dropbox’s sync service as your only backup. Any flaw anywhere gets immediately synced and … poof, backup gone. Dropbox does have a new “backup” service.
I have the Dropbox app on my Mac. Am I correct that anything showing in Dropbox in Finder will be backed up when I backup to my external drives and also via Blackblaze?
I’ve used Resilio Sync for Scrivener many years now. Since I have a 24/7 server computer, I run Resilio Sync to set up my own cloud. I’ve never lost or had damaged anything I’ve used it for.
The last thing I had that used Dropbox was Quicken, but recently they recommended not using it, after actually providing an account for it some years ago as their only recommended sync.
Strongly recommended if you have a server or NAS. (Resilio has clients for NASes, too).
If you don’t “exclude” the Dropbox Folder, TimeMachine will back it up. You don’t mention TimeMachine as being in use. Just check you have the folders you want backed up, not excluded and included no matter what tool you use.
Re Backblaze … I don’t have their documentation at hand, but in the app it gives a list of what is not backed up. take a look. No need to repeat here what they document for you in their app and probably in their Help and FAQ documentation.
I use
TimeMachine for full system backups to USB drives and to Synology NAS
Carbon Capture Cloner for backups of very important stuff to USB Drive and to Synology NAS
Synology Hyper backup to copy everything offsite to Dropbox’s Backup (not sync) service and to USB drive. Some important stuff backed up to USB drives on iMac, which in turn are backed up by Backblaze (see next)
Backblaze on iMac to get offsite of selected files on local drive and connected USB drives.
Edit: I returned to my iMac. So can show below what are the standard “exclusions” by BackBlaze:
It does peer-to-peer syncing. So it always does what Dropbox calls “LAN sync”. The server/NAS is just a peer that is on 24/7 so there is always a computer to sync to. It is functionally no different than any other computer using Resilio Sync. Peers do not need to be on the same LAN. Basically it is BitTorrent technology with a legitimate use.
You can work on the same file on iPad and Mac without Dropbox, but you have to be more disciplined about moving the file between both platforms. It’s fiddly, but you can do it. Work primarily on your Mac or on the iPad, and just use the other when you have to. Traveling? Move the file to your ipad. When you come home, replace your mac version with the one you had on the iPad. Again, it’s fiddly. But you could do it in a pinch.
Also, did you notice that Scrivener was featured in the MacBook Pro video and on the MacBook Pro web page?
One of my tests of BackBlaze is to use their web interface to browse to different folders and do a restore that I load onto a different computer. Lets me verify that I can get to everything and use it elsewhere if my main computer goes up in a blaze of glory.
What is concerning for you? Dropbox is profitable and there is no sign that they’re going out of business anytime soon. I don’t see why they would need over 2500 people for running their business.
Perhaps @Bmosbacker is thinking ethically as much as technologically? He might vote with his feet for a business that looks after its people (better)?
I have recently been reviewing my DB use since it’s my most expensive monthly sub in my stack. But I use it everyday for syncing DEVONthink and it has been absolutely rock solid for many years (I could explore Bonjour sync instead). I used to share files with friends and colleagues much more regularly over DB, but that is ended now. I also use ARQ backup for three machines in my household to Dropbox. Once more, this combination is rock solid. For some reason I prefer to use to backup to my own, “owned” Dropbox instance over the cloud storage that Arq provides with my sub, but that is probably silly.
My employer provides unlimited OneDrive storage (and so work sharing and collaboration is fully within the Microsoft framework), but I would never use that for backing up personal devices.
I am yet to be convinced that anything comes close to DB in terms of reliability (despite the various app bloat of recent years, but tbh it’s never gotten in my way).
I was not, as I don’t consider layoffs, in and of themselves, unethical. No one owes us a job. Businesses hire and lay off employees based on business needs, which is a matter of stewardship of the company’s resources and ability to stay in business, compete, and keep others employed. That said, ethical considerations come into play concerning the timing, criteria for selecting who was laid off, whether or not the layoffs went beyond business need to mere greed (an almost impossible thing to measure objectively), length of notice given, severance, benefit bridges provided, and more.
