Dropbox full because of shared folder

[Michele A.]

Hi, i have a dropbox account and the free space that i have is full because of the files inside the shared folder that i have with some friends.
Is there a way to avoid that the shared folder that uses the free space of my account without cancelling those folder?
Because i have no more space and i haven't uploaded any files

Excuse me for my english but i found problem on trying to traduce this message from my language

[Ben L.26]

Mark:

Dacia doesn't pull a bait-and-switch in their fine print outlining that yes, the car has power steering and an FM radio, but they designed a custom electrical system that more efficiently uses energy, and as a result you can't use the power steering while the radio is on. Sure, the documentation is available if you look for it, and the sales person likely has knowledge of the limitation, but if you hop online to various car enthusiast forums you'd find threads started by owners just finding out about the limitation after nearly crashing on the road because they wanted some music. You'd also find Porsche owners pointing those who complain right to the documentation and telling them to RTFM, and others still that tell them to get a different car if they're not happy with the one they have.

No one is saying Dropbox isn't within their legal right to act this way. We're saying it's a really sleazy thing to do, limiting what is perceived to be a conceptually simple feature in some non-intuitive way without being upfront about it.

Also, this doesn't just affect free users; a Dropbox Pro user would run into this issue as well with enough data.

[Mark]

I totally disagree Ben, sorry. At no point, at all, does Dropbox make ANY association or offer that joining a share will not use up your space. The issue is people just assume that it will work how they want it to work without actually doing any due diligence or simple research to see what actually is the case. 

[Adam C.36]

Mark Mc, Ben L:

Ben - well said. I was going to use the analogy of Dacia charging extra because you want to take some passengers, but I think yours is better.

Mark: As has been said many times in this thread, it's not that Drop Box is not allowed to do this - it's their business. However, this is not a good business model. It is disingenuous and illogical - it just doesn't work the way you would expect it to, and the only 'fix' is to buy more space - a fix that only works until enough people share THEIR data with you, and you have to pay again and again to keep using the service.

The model all other cloud services I know of, where you pay for space and you can share it with others, but they don't have to pay for that privilege is transparent, and obvious.

I'll keep my free 5GB for when someone wants to share with me, but with this business model there is absolutely no chance that I'd pay for 'an upgrade'. I'll spend my money where the T's & C's are clear and obvious and I don't get ripped off! 

[Mark]

The model all other cloud services I know of, where you pay for space and you can share it with others, but they don't have to pay for that privilege is transparent, and obvious.

You mean a lot of the other cloud services that have gone under? Copy.com for example. 

 I'll spend my money where the T's & C's are clear and obvious and I don't get ripped off! 

They are. You just dont want to pay - thats the top and bottom of it. Which you are obviously well within your rights to do, but dont try and hide the fact that you are not upgrading because of this. It has nothing to do with it. Its simply a case of 'I want my cake. And to eat it. And for free'. And in a lot of cases (not sure about individual ones here) but I'm going to use it for my business and charge other people but not then pay for the services/products I uses to do so. 

[Andrew R.34]

@Mark Mc, if you took to the streets and did a poll where you asked passersby who used cloud storage services if they thought their personal cloud storage quota would be used if they accepted an invitation to another user's shared folder, how do you think the majority would reply? I guarantee the majority would expect their personal quota to be unaffected by connecting to shared folders. Most people would think the two things are completely disconnected.

This is all we are saying: the expectation of the majority of cloud storage users is that personal quotas is one thing and any connection to a shared folder is completely separate.

[Hajo Nils K.]

I'll chime in on this with a slightly different, but related problem:

I have a Dropbox Pro account (so yes I paid for the 1TB upgrade) with Packrat Addon (also paid) and I have laptop, and an insecure Windows desktop machine. The Windows desktop is insecure because it's where I allow outsiders to test out my apps ... so a malicious trial user could easily compromise the Windows desktop machine.

So now what I want to do is to sync some folders of my Dropbox with the insecure machine. Support says the only way to do that is to create a new free account and share the folder with the new free account. Problem is, the folder is 3GB, so the free account immediately ran out of storage.

So now I have two options:

1. Use a different service to synchronize my 3GB folder with the insecure machine. (hint: Google Drive)

2. Pay for Dropbox Pro twice, once for my main account that I use on the laptop and once for my second account that I use on the insecure machine.

To me, having to pay twice as much as before just to setup a second access-restricted login to my data seems ridiculously overpriced. It's not like I'm collaborating with anyone.. I just want Dropbox to synchronize between my computers in a halfway secure fashion.

Of course, for my use case it would also be good enough if Dropbox would introduce a method for me to create additional access-restricted login credentials whose storage counts towards the quota of my paid main account.

But no matter how they intend to fix it .. for me, it's obviously a huge disappointment that Dropbox doesn't actually support safe synchronization. They do support synchronization, but if one machine is stolen, your Dropbox could be taken over. And they do support separation of rights, by creating new accounts.. but sadly, they don't support safe and synchronization at the same time.

BTW, Google Drive doesn't count shared folders towards the recipient's storage limit.

[Eugen K.]

I agree it is very annoying how the shared folders count to everyone's quota.

Once my 12 month subscription is over with dropbox, i will be moving to Google drive - pricing is the same, but service is much better.

[Alexis G.1]

But this is not how they charge for the service - DB charges by space, not by access or downloads.

This is not true. There is a huge amount of technology investment: broadband, security, permission backups, etc 

For example: if one user with Dropbox Pro shares a folder with 20GB with 20 friends, Dropbox will need to provide enough bandwidth for all this users.

Dropbox don't use cheap DSL / Cable Internet technology like most of us have at home, they use Symmetric Dedicated Broadband and redundant links: very expensive! To give you an idea, a 100 Mbps DSL can cost you 50 USD a month, but a dedicated fiber link at the same speed can cost you 1000 - 2000 USD a month. Take into consideration Dropbox needs to provide great bandwidths to all Pro and Free users.

And more connection means more investment in Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, Network Access Control devices, Load Balancers, complex VLANs, Routers, WAN Accelerators, etc.

At the end: More users (Business, Pro or Free) =  More equipment, more bandwidth, more investment. And high end devices are really, really expensive. A domestic switch can cost you 20 USD at Amazon, but a Professional Manageable Layer3 switch can cost 10,000 USD (each one!). 

[Mark]

the expectation of the majority of cloud storage users is that personal quotas is one thing and any connection to a shared folder is completely separate.

And? Sorry but really what does somebody's expectations have to do with it?

I expect the Government to not screw me over, however, the do so constantly. Asking people if they expect the same thing is irrelevant. 

[Judy B.13]

Dave is an idiot and probably works for dropbox!  1 digital file is one digital file accessible by whomever is allowed from a single server.  Moron and misinforming others!   If you share, you share you don't copy.  Bad work Dropbox and I am gone as well as are all my employees and other companies I work with.

JB