Dropbox is now too hard to use.

Yes, I just got so angry today trying to use their new way of doing things. In the past, I right-clicked a file, got the link, and pasted the link in an email to send to people with an explanation. But thanks to their ridiculously new complex procedure, I have no idea of how to get the link of a file. This is absurd. Did DropBox even bother to run this through a UX team before they unloaded it. Thank god, my subscription is coming to an end. I signed up for a simple easy-to-use interface, not some ridiculous piece of hard-to-understand intrusive bloat that wants me to jump through hoops. 
And I never did discover how to get the link. I copied one from an old file and hope it still works.

Hi KeepItSimple; thanks for joining our Community. 

I'm sorry to ask, but are you following the steps from the relevant Help Center article and not working for you?

https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/share/view-only-access

Could you give them a go and let us know if you're still having issues with this?

Thanks! 

Walter:
Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately the indicated document shows exactly what everyone is complaining about. DropBox clearly didn't use anyone with even the most basic user experience expertise to design or check the interface for ease of use. It was clearly developed by programmers who never considered things from the user perspective. I suspect the programmers just got told, "We want users to do stuff that we can charge more for. So just force them to do it that way."
Case in point, how to share a file. Which procedure do you think is more intuitive and easier to user?
------------
DROPBOX'S OLD WAY
1. Right click the file in the DropBox folder on your PC, and select "Copy DropBox Link".
2. Paste that link into an email and send it.
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DROPBOX'S NEW WAY (DIRECT QUOTE FROM DOCBOX)
1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Click All files in the left sidebar.
3. Hover over the name of the file or folder you'd like to share and click Share.
4. If a link hasn't been created, click Create a link.
- If a link was already created, click Copy link.
5. The link will be copied to your clipboard. You can then paste it to an email, message, or wherever people can access it.
----------
(Actually, the new procedure is even worse, because the first step is actually a jump that leads to another procedure.)
DropBox is generally more expensive than competitors, but it used to be so easy to use it wasn't worth changing. Now you've just given everyone an incentive to seriously look at cheaper competitors. I have serious doubts about the future of any software company that doesn't regard the user experience as important.

Thanks for getting back to us here KeepItSimple!

In the article that Walter linked for you previously, the first steps there show how to do this from the website.

However, since you mentioned doing this from the Dropbox folder on your computer, you would need to use the second steps listed under "How to share with a link from the Dropbox folder on your computer".

These steps are the same as what you mentioned that you used previously.

Can you let me know what kind of issues you're running into when trying to take this action now from your local Dropbox folder on your computer?

If you're not seeing any relevant Dropbox options when right clicking the file, can you check if the desktop app is running on your computer?

Let me know!

Hi Casper

I hope you're keeping safe and well. Yes I was only joking too. I'm sure the people who run Dropbox are brighter than the bunch of idiots we've got as a government here

Sorry to be slow replying to this I have only just seen it. I would very much appreciate some help. I have an Apple phone which is up to date. My MacBook Pro laptop is rather old (manufactured 2009) and I cannot update it past OS X 10.10.5, and I have wondered if that is the problem. When you ask for messages I don't get anything. I follow the instructions, get the phone pointed at the pattern of dots on the laptop's screen and that's it - nothing more happens

Best wishes

Crispin

You're both right. Dropbox is much improved, and better than Google Drive/One Drive for many tasks, and it is also now too hard to use. Dropbox, like so many cloud apps, faces a set of dilemmas? How do you charge more,  and keep the VCs happy? How do you add features, to satisfy your most demanding customers (i.e., heaviest users)? And, how do you do all that and keep a broad base of users so all your activities scale? The answer usually is to try to scale or convert an app into a platform. The old dropbox was an app for one thing--trading or sharing files with friends and coworkers. Then, because dropbox actually resided two placess-the cloud and your hard drive--you could use it as a sort of backup, or a tool to make your files available to yourself wherever you wanted to work. But the money is in corporate licensing (always!) so Dropbox evolved to meet the needs of larger workgroups and administrators of those workgroups. Then, to escape the clutches of the desktop, it also enabled working on documents in the cloud.  And on and on it keeps metastasizing.

Some love these developments. Others hate them because they turn Dropbox from an intuitive, simple, file sharing app, into something much larger that one literally has to learn. And, frankly, people are sick of learning. I know I am, and I work in IT. Right now I've got a new thermostat, some medical devices for my wife, and a couple of new networking devices I need to learn either to run my home or my job.  I wear a Fitbit that I've never learned completely, too. All I use it for is counting steps and heart rate. I don't want to share, or compete with Fitbit friends, or turn my Fitbit into a platform, though no doubt that is what FitBit investors want. 

So essentially, this is a war between users who have simple needs and their three main enemies. These basic users want apps to do one thing simply and well, like share files.  The three enemies--corporate users who have large, growing needs for collaboration; power users who always want more for novelty or fear of being left out; and the company and its investors and venture capitalists, who want their tech products to turn into platforms so that they can monopolize a greater percentage of the users minutes per day, and charge accordingly--all need for the apps to grow, change, and improve on a steady schedule. Which frustrates the basic users.

amen. I just sent them that same message. It's absurd that using the core purpose has become impossible

I am not opposed to Dropbox expanding its mission. However, the CORE mission is now almost impossible to access and easily use. The idea that I now have to "learn Dropbox" is absurd. I am trying to run a business not "learn Dropbox". If I wish to use it as it originally functioned, I should have that option without having to "learn" Dropbox. Unfortunately when I open it, what I see is totally incomprehensible to me and rather than sit there and "learn Dropbox" I prefer to go about my business productively. It's become a total waste of time for me.

When I open Drobox now I don't even know what I am looking at. If I put a file on Dropbox now it seems to just disappear 'somewhere' and I don't even see it anymore. I used to be able to put it in, and there it was. That is how I wish to use it. I don't need or want the rest of the clutter. You should offer Dropbox in various functionality levels. Believe, me my time is scarce as it is, "learning" Dropbox is not among the best uses of my time.

Same issue here. I and my team rely heavily on WhatsApp for field personnel to send back photos to the operations team.
Before I would use DROP SYNC to synchronize android devices to my Dropbox folders.

The files no longer go into my nominated DROPBOX folder on my RAID 10 drive in my pc. Instead, after the latest update, they are "virtually available" in the drop box virtual drive on my pc. The problem is that my C drive is a high speed SSD REVODRIVE with cad and other important software. When I try to move the 1.5 TB dropbox folders to my D drive where the original folder was; I receive the error "Dropbox already exists" Dropbox does not allow live synchro to an existing folder on my D drive. Just a virtual folder on my already cluttered C drive. I want ALL my files live on my PC. In my D drive.

I am sure there is a way to do this. But I do not want to become a programmer to learn how to relearn what is not broke; that worked before. I am sure there is a programmer somewhere with his head up against the tree trunk and doesn’t realize he is in a forest.

This is the problem that programmers have visions that make programming sense but are devoid of the basic functionality on which the average use relies. I have several professional drop box accounts that are distributed to site leads; I am actively looking for alternatives.

There is a feeling of frustration when a product that is simple and usable changes to unmanageable and unintuitive.

I understand that manament must stay on the wave of development; or lose out to newer technologies that virgin users find more accomodating than even  legacy users.  There has to be a blaance .  It is lost in my opinion.  You are tampoering with your core user group.