And over time Dropbox ended up creating unique features and a value that stands on its own.
In this case, the Apple ecosystem limited Apple’s thinking and both Box and Dropbox were able to move to create unique value. And frankly, good for them.
Jup! And what's with the pricing? The next best tier is 2 TB? Why isn't there an option, with say 100gb, 3-4 bucks a month and not annoyingly trying to sell me some stuff when I'm just using 25% of my space.
I would buy it in an instant.. but for 10 dollars a month so that I use 2% of that space? Sorry, then I will look somewhere else..
Well, it’s not “valuable” enough to make Dropbox profitable and for the same price you can get Office 365 with 6TB of storage and the complete office suite.
The main reason Dropbox exists (along with WhatsApp) is that Apple is unwilling to support its "unique" ecosystem features (iCloud, iMessage) on other platforms (they only make it a "feature" of their own platform to increase its perceived value and attract users). So if you want cross-platform, you have to use 3rd party stuff (Dropbox, WhatsApp).
Steve Jobs even called it a “feature,” saying iCloud would put it out of business.