> It is a tough market that has cut off the consumer end because all the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple (iCloud), Google (Drive), Microsoft (OneDrive).

A huge unforced error though is that the starting price for individual plans is $20/year versus $10/month for Dropbox and Box. At a certain point you have to recognize that the rules of the game have changed. Once a customer has their foot in the door with a cheaper plan that also offers better integration, why would they move to Dropbox or Box?

The typical answer when people ask why Dropbox doesn't have a cheap low tier is that the more expensive plans are more likely to be underused, and therefore more profitable than a 100GB plan that users constantly max out.

But I'm also curious about whether they've studied the long-term growth impact like you mentioned. I first needed to pay for cloud storage as a broke college student. I'd used Dropbox's free tier in high school and only needed a bit more space, and I certainly didn't have $120/year to spend on it. I ended up switching to Google Drive's $2/month plan and never looked back at Dropbox. If Dropbox had offered a comparable plan, I would have stayed and ended up upgrading to the $10/month plan when I got my first job. Looking at how much data I'm using right now, I would have become exactly the type of underutilizing user they want.

They probably have to prove to me nobody can read my files besides me & the NSA (no “our 134 advertising partners …”)

unless they really want to wait for iOneGDrive to enshittify

Edit: as it stands, sounds like uploading already encrypted files to AWS is the option for privacy hawks who still want cloud - such a small market but think it should grow