Dropbox is about to kill off part of the internet.
Explanation:
Newer users may not realise that Dropbox once included a “Public” folder for shared links. Everything in that folder got a unique url which could be copied and given to any other individual(s) as a direct link to that content, or which could be embedded into another forum post so that - for example - an image would appear.
Dropbox ended support for a Public folder for new users some years ago, but existing users were assured they could continue to use theirs. There are now millions of links on the internet which are from Dropbox users’ Public folders.
Now Dropbox are discontinuing the Public folder for ALL users. If this wasn’t bad enough (after the promises which were made), Dropbox are refusing to ‘grandfather’ (i.e. preserve) the links that are already out there, even after they end support for all Public folders. All such links will, overnight, become ‘dead’, wherever they are on the internet.
Dropbox refuse to explain WHY they will not preserve existing links, refuse to enter into discussion about this, and refuse even to explain WHY they won’t discuss it. They’ve also been heavily censoring any discussion of this on their own forums: deleting threads to make it look like there’s less of an organized outcry, editing other user’s posts without their permission to say completely different things than they originally did, deleting posts altogether. They only stopped doing this once it was pointed out that people with e-mail subscriptions to the topic (such as myself), could see and had evidence of what they were doing.
Dropbox is a shady company that continues to lie to its users, won’t offer any recompense to the PAYING CUSTOMERS who use this feature that they were PROMISED, and is destroying tens of thousands of people’s real work, from college professors to small businesses.
Do me a favor, and spread this. Drop dropbox.
