Ending support of public folder

The public folder is what brought many people to Dropbox - what set it apart and made it differ from the competitors. Calling it a relic does it and all the people that desire the functionality an injustice.

I don't see how anyone can say that the replacement functionality is superior unless they're in the pockets of Dropbox. Only Dropbox benefits from its removal; users suffer from the increased complexity of managing both a file system and a links system (when really, the two are the same thing).

They also suffer the "indirect" removal of direct links - the main reason for this move, I'm sure. I mean, when you share something with someone, Dropbox wants some ad space or a means to generate conversions and revenue. What happened when they introduced the new links system? That's correct, you handed a link to someone that was not logged into Dropbox (or indeed did not have a Dropbox account) and they were immediately pestered to sign up before they could access the content you linked.

And with that, they suffer the consequences of increased bandwidth and resources to load the linked content, and the decreased functionality of clean, universal embedding whether you're in a terminal or on a browser.

And of course, they suffer the vanishing of the links to their content - probably the thing that stings the most for many.

In fact, you could go one step further and call the newer system and functionality relics that Dropbox initially saved many people from. Before Dropbox, most people relied on upload sites with big download buttons. Dropbox saved people from this by presenting a far simpler and more hassle-free approach that is now being slowly peeled back.

Oh well, there are better alternatives now - similar companies that offer all the same features and more; free and paid. Or people could do one better and rent their own VPS for a similar price and a vastly larger degree of control.