Ask HN: Idea - Dropbox, Pay for what you use

3 points by Kevindish 14 years ago | 5 comments

I really like dropbox and think it is really smart.

I know they use Amazon S3 to store the data, so I have been thinking; They have to pay for the exact resourcesse that has been used, but the end user has a unlimited account with 50 GB. That means the prices has to cover the expensive, whether you are a heavy user or somebody who just store photos and do not touch it.

I then search the internet to see if anybody had made a client, that makes the dropbox experince and connect with Amazon S3, this way i pay exactly what i use. But all I found was either very old or not usable.

Dropbox obvious do not use that model, because the user do not have the slightest clue for what they are going to end up paying. Normal people like to know what they have to pay. They like unlimited, but the fact is, that nothing is unlimited, somebody has to pay.

Therefore I was thinking it would be great with a service, where you payed for what you used. Of course you should not put the price for the request/put/list, but just the basic.

- How much you have stored - How much you have downloaded

And then you pay for that.

Then for example if you would like to store 25 GB of pictures it would cost you $2.75 to store.

Then there would properly need some money, to handle all this, but the price would depend on what you use, and therefore be very flexible, no need for choosing between to packages.

What do you think of the idea? Would it be something you would use?

vgnet 14 years ago |

In the general case, Dropbox benefits from unused (but paid for) capacity, while users want a fixed price, even if they're overpaying (compared to use). For some products, pay-as-you-use seems better and more attractive, but Dropbox wants simplicity and ubiquity, so I don't think that model would be better for them.

See http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/18/the-truth-about-oversel... for a related discussion.

Kevindish 14 years ago | |

sorry, I meant as i new product for advanced people, dropbox should not do it, that would be stupid.

I just miss a service, where I pay for what i use, and I would then hear if hackers also wanted that? or they where just fine with dropbox two packages :)

PaperclipTaken 14 years ago |

This doesn't refer to dropbox in general, but I've wanted for a while now to see more products that charge you prices that fit tighter to your actual usage.

My biggest example here is internet bandwidth. Whether I am a grandmother checking my email once a week, or whether I heavily torrent data and use my connection almost constantly, I am going to be paying the same price for a given connection speed.

In many cases, it would not be practical to devise a payment scheme to closely the exact cost of something, but I would like to see more products where at least the most major variables are taken into account.

I think the cell phone industry is a good example of something that does this more accurately. They charge you for a given number of minutes, a given number of text messages, a given amount of data. Why can't this model be followed by TV and internet providers?

true_religion 14 years ago | |

Of all the services that I use, phone service seems the most expensive relative to what I actually get out of it.

My impression is that on every other service, I'm being heavily subsidized by people who underuse it. I appreciate that, and wouldn't want to popularize the metering idea.

Metering means that once i switch from being a light user to being engaged with the service, I have to care about cost. Without metering, there's a fluid thoughtless transition.

After having to pay for so many different bills, I'd rather just have a fixed price and know that's what's paid out than have to worry about budget overruns on a metered plan.

vonsydov 14 years ago |

or smaller tranches...like 2$/month for 10 gigs