Dropping Dropbox

I have been planning on dropping Dropbox when shared folders are available on iCloud. My primary reason was to save money and improve my security by staying in the Apple Walled Garden. Dropbox’s recent announcement of major changes in the way they think about what their service is have made me think a move is even more warranted.

In its new iteration it’s a centralized collaboration point for all of the things people work on together. The new Dropbox not only lets you sync and share your files, the folks at Dropbox now insist that it’s:

…a single workspace to organize your content, connect your tools, and bring everyone together, wherever you are. The first thing you’ll notice is an all-new Dropbox desktop app that we’re introducing today through our early access program. It’s more than an app, though — it’s a completely new experience.

Dropbox

I must fully concur with John Gruber at Daring Fireball who writes simply, “I didn’t want any of this.”

That seems to be the upshot of the commentary on the new Dropbox. Nobody was looking for another way, outside the operating system they are running, to integrate the cloud services they use. Especially one that comes in an electron app that eats memory. They wanted a lightweight, cross platform way to sync and share files.

Has Dropbox jumped the shark? Time will tell, but this makes me feel like jumping off the Dropbox platform is the correct decision.