Comment by locknitpicker
4 hours ago
> It's slightly unrealic idea though, as most of internet users are consumers, and that's the role they really prefer. That's why Dropbox gained popularity in spite of, you know, the fact that we all can do it with FTP.
Dropbox gained popularity because none of us can or want to bother to do it with FTP, with the exception of a very small and determined minority.
Why do you think that even FANG engineers use cloud storage systems such as Dropbox/iCloud/OneDrive/Google Drive/etc. Can't an elite software engineer put together a FTP server?
Why do you think Dropbox et al are still a thing in spite of projects such as Syncthing?
This is not the only instance where user experience and convenience show their value. Look at Docker, for example. The "aktually" crowd will be fast to say that anyone can do the same with chroot et al, but they will again be missing the whole point. It's the same thing why Microsoft tried to invest in Aspire even though Docker is here.
It's like complaining that people can buy bread when all they need to make their own is flour, water, salt, and yeast. That's completely besides the point, ain't it?
I think you're taking the "FTP" part a bit too literally here. No one's suggesting we'd jump in a terminal and type in FTP commands manually or even use the FTP protocol itself - we've got better options today, and we'd have even better options if the Internet had had global node-to-node connectivity all along.
It'd likely just be built into your operating system's tooling. Your file manager would be able to access other machines it can authenticate to, or you'd automount remote directories on login, etc.
The reason people use cloud storage systems for moving files around is because they have to. A 3rd party server is required because we don't have node-to-node connectivity.
Hell, we'd likely have had cloud storage options sooner because people wanting extra remote storage would totally have been a thing.