With an estimated valuation of around Us$10 billion, Dropbox's rise to fame was a direct issue of some central strategies, only can the blockchain help the popular storage service attain even greater success?

Many have questioned why the relatively young visitor, founded in but 2008, has skyrocketed to become a household name with over 300 million users. Information technology is estimated to be worth anywhere from United states$4 billion dollars, with Forbes magazine and other major outlets estimating the figure at closer to Usa$x billion.

In either case, Dropbox has seen some impressive growth and, in January 2022, the company successfully raised Usa$250 one thousand thousand from investors. With the file storage market place is only expected to grow every bit we continue to plough forward through the information age, MarketsandMarkets estimates that the public and individual cloud storage industry volition be worth U.s.$56.57 billion by 2022.

In addition to Dropbox, other electric current market leaders include Apple's iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft'due south OneDrive.

— The virtually popular cloud storage services of 2022

Seven Reasons Why Dropbox is a Success

First, let's wait at how Dropbox managed to become ane of the leading providers in this rapidly-growing field. According to blogger Zach Bulygo from KISSmetrics, Dropbox's rise to success is due to seven cardinal strategies the visitor implemented in bringing its partners and customers on board.

Apart from offering users ii gigs of free storage, Dropbox has succeeded past making information technology every bit simple as possible to sign up for their service and utilize it, and by making it easy to share information with people you know. In fact, one of the virtually popular uses for Dropbox is sharing photos with friends and family equally a means to relieve storage space on physical devices.

Bulgyo lists the kickoff 5 reasons for the visitor's success as a "signup-driven homepage," an "piece of cake signup process," "refer a friend," "social media," and "sharing with simplicity." The final two reasons are not unrelated, with a contest chosen Dropquest forth with "availability on multiple devices and platforms" giving the visitor a final border over its competitors.

A few more facts about Dropbox:

  • Revenue reached about United states$116 million in 2022 and was expected to reach US$200 meg in 2022.

  • In Jan 2022, Dropbox raised US$250 million at a US$10 billion valuation.

  • One billion files are saved to Dropbox every 24 hours

  • The company has over 300 million users.

  • The visitor employs over 500 people.

  • The programme is installed on 250 million devices.

Six Reasons Why Dropbox Isn't Secure Enough

But not everything is as rosy as it seems, according to Joseph Topal, who cites six major reasons why Dropbox is non secure enough for business organisation—and probably you lot, the individual, as well.

The author mentions that despite the fact that Dropbox is i of the most normally banned apps in the office due to increasing security concerns, the service has already "found its way into 70% of companies."

The six points of vulnerability include:

  • It has no command or visibility.

  • Users cannot set granular permissions.

  • Data encryption is limited.

  • Information technology is not possible to gear up unlike sharing permissions for sub-folders.

  • It is non possible to share password-protected web links.

  • It is not possible to lock files for collaborative editing.

Single Points of Failure

Increasing contest comes from similar services, such equally Box, which has been touted as a better option for business. Competitors tin hands replicate and better on Dropbox's business organization model, and this should exist an obvious business organization for the current market leader.

But the most important upshot for Dropbox users when trusting any third party with their personal files is, undoubtedly, security. No need to expect far for an instance: Simply last month, most vii one thousand thousand Dropbox usernames and passwords were hacked, albeit via 3rd-political party services, from which hackers were able to obtain login information.

With the always-increasing digitization of money, cyber security will exist the biggest business organisation and the biggest challenge for this industry going forward. Today we are seeing more and more media reports on still some other glory whose nude pictures were stolen, or another cyber assail such as the recent attack on JPMorgan Chase, which resulted in a data breach affecting 76 million households and vii meg small businesses.

Decentralized Security

Other tools promising to shield users from prying eyes, such equally the popular "anonymous" web browser Tor, have also had their own share of problems. Just the fact remains that, given the current method by which data is stored and transferred via the internet, hackers and cyber-security firms will continue to try to i-upward each other in a perpetual game of cat and mouse.

The fundamental problem lies in the centralized structural framework itself, and with how and where data is actually stored. Fortunately for us, the advent of blockchain technology did not simply bring us a better and more than secure style to pay for things—it as well opened the door to other applications, including decentralized information storage.

In fact, startup companies in the crypto space, such as Storj, are implementing blockchain engineering science to store data in a decentralized style without any servers. Storj is based on blockchain technology and p2p protocols that offering users greater security, greater privacy, and encrypted deject storage. What'south more is that this service not just promises to be 10 to 100 times more than cost effective compared to traditional deject storage services (see chart below), simply information technology too gives users the option to share their hard drive space to earn money.

We reached out to Storj and asked what are the benefits of decentralized cloud storage. Founder and head programmer of Storj, Shawn Wilkinson explained to Cointelegraph via email:

"[Decentralized storage] increases security, only the users hold the keys to the data. Increased uptime, no cardinal servers or switches to go down. Increased privacy, we don't store identities on the network. Decreased cost, cloud companies charge 10x-100x their core costs."

And while certain limitations practise exist, which could slow the development of these mesh networks, cryptocurrencies could play a big part in incentivizing participation, as explained in a Bitcoin Magazine commodity:

"The main drawback is that this requires all users to comport other users' traffic, which costs reckoner resources and bandwidth. The best idea for incentivizing participation so far would incorporate cryptocurrency by either rewarding coins to those who road more traffic than they generate, or charge a fee to those who don't. The beauty of this solution is that it decentralizes the communications industry, which by its nature is prone to monopoly–conglomerates like Comcast, Verizon or Shaw in North America […]."

"Laying cable lines is rather expensive; we would accept to unearth concrete and pavement each fourth dimension someone moved and lines needed to be moved or upgraded. As wireless technology advances, notwithstanding, the price of powerful WiFi routers volition reach a point where they can effectively replace copper wires for the middle class in relatively urban areas."

"Instead of connecting to a modem installed by your Internet service provider, these routers connect directly to each other, or to long-range routers designed to reach past unpopulated terrain where no users live. Anyone continued to an ISP can act as a gateway, assuasive others to attain content left behind in the historical organization."

— Price comparison betwixt Storj and Dropbox for 100GB

Meanwhile, other pioneering companies such equally Maidsafe are taking it a step even further by building a decentralized internet based on peer-to-peer, mesh networks. Maidsafe CEO, David Irvine explained to Cointelegraph, in an interview back in April, the reason he started his ambitious project:

"I thought the Net had become a very unnatural design and could not bear to run into people lose command of their identities and personal thoughts. I figured that with all the computing resource bachelor in people'southward personal computers that nosotros could do a much better job with what nosotros accept."

Maidsafe's attempt at a decentralized net appears to resonate with the public, since the company raised over US$8 million dollars during its massively successful crowdsale dorsum in the spring of 2022.

blockchain

- An example of a wireless mesh network

Blockchain-inspired technologies could reduce our dependency or even eliminate the need for centralized networks and servers in the future. Thanks to projects like Maidsafe, nosotros can at present not but rethink how we shop, share and access data, but we tin can already implement these ideas considering the necessary protocols are already at our disposal.

Meanwhile, other non-blockchain services offer their own breakthroughs, such equally Syndicate, are also hot on the heels of Dropbox. Syndicate'south service "combines existing cloud storage providers into a single (virtual) cloud storage," which the company claims "decentralizes your data so you lot control it, non the providers."

Dropbox, PRISM, and the NSA

Some other surface area of concern for major online storage providers are the revelations that US government agencies accept forced US companies to plough over customer information. This has damaged trust in cloud providers. In fact, Edward Snowden stated that "Dropbox is an NSA surveillance target," and warned users to "use Spideroak instead."

Prior to the NSA leaks, the global cloud market was valued at United states$131 billion with American companies comprising a big chunk of that effigy. Yet, after the revelations, it is estimated that the potential amercement inflicted on the Us cloud manufacture will range betwixt U.s.$22 and Us$35 billion for the adjacent three years lone (see chart below), co-ordinate to a research newspaper published past The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

Considering that the NSA leaks have besides had meaning impact outside of America, especially in Europe, information technology is non too farfetched to presume that users will take a harder time trusting these companies with their personal information, and they will seek more than secure alternatives that can guarantee greater privacy.

— Estimated losses to the cloud storage manufacture in outcome of NSA leaks

Your Motility, Dropbox

With all of the new players (due east.g. Box, Storj, etc.) and the innovation penetrating the deject storage infinite, the current height positions held by the likes of Dropbox and Apple's iCloud are starting to wait rather tenuous. Meanwhile, as more and more big players such as Dell and Paypal begin to accept Bitcoin—and fifty-fifty Wall Street is getting into the mix—the mainstream media is beginning to alter its tune, underpinning the general consensus that Bitcoin is hither to stay.

In whole, this is all looking very promising for the nascent blockchain engineering science and the myriad of startups that it spawns, equally even the mainstream media concedes that the blockchain has the potential to revolutionize and disrupt many industries.

And as already mentioned, the advantages of decentralized systems in regards to security and price volition bulldoze the principal disruption going forrard.

The employ of mesh networks, blockchain technology and cryptocurrency tokens will lower the operating costs of centralized server-based networks by spreading the resources and costs, equally well as the rewards among the network's users. Security will be greatly enhanced equally the centralized points-of-failure (i.e. servers, counterparty risk, etc.) will be eliminated, thus removing any systemic risk.

This will give companies like Storj a competitive advantage over Dropbox and other centralized cloud storage services, whose users will soon have an alternative that volition provide greater security at a fraction of the price. Thus, if these legacy companies are serious about staying competitive in this apace growing space, they should start looking into what experts call one of the biggest inventions ever as a way to not merely cut costs and secure user data, only to too potentially advantage their users with crypto-tokens.

When asked whether companies like Dropbox would do good from implementing decentralized solutions, Wilkinson remarked:

"Yeah, Dropbox would benefit profoundly from increased security and reduced price. Only at the terminate of the 24-hour interval they are a profitable billion dollar business so I don't see them making any major changes in their business organization model anytime soon."

Of course, decentralized storage-solution providers still have a long way to go with respect to legacy companies. But let's not forget that it only took Dropbox half-dozen years to achieve an estimated worth of The states$10 billion and, considering that the IT manufacture has been growing at an accelerating pace, a company similar Storj could become the new favorite, real soon.

As CIO of Swiss bank UBS, Oliver Bussmann, stated to the Wall Street Journal:

"When somebody with a strong brand and security level establishes it as a reliable service, and then the whole industry will follow."

[Notation: Cointelegraph reached out to Dropbox for their thoughts simply did non receive whatever response.]

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