Last year, I decided to embark on an ambitious trip, driving a Super Suv around the world and living out of the back of my car. My plan was to document the journey and create a YouTube channel. To keep my content organized and accessible for my editor, I needed a cloud-based file organization system. After researching my options, I found an unlimited storage plan from Dropbox, agreed to all the terms, and started my journey.
Filming and uploading content on the road was far from easy. Many of the countries I visited had horrible internet service. I often had to drive around for hours and hours to find a decent spot, sometimes spending days or sleeping overnight in coworking facilities just to upload my content. Despite these challenges, I managed to accumulate about 16 TB of photos and videos over nine months.
Then, out of nowhere, Dropbox emailed me saying they were no longer honoring the unlimited storage plan and would now charge me for each chunk of new data uploaded(I don't have the exact quote anymore but it was around a few hundred bucks a year for each additional 5tb). I immediately contacted customer service and found out this was a firm new scam policy to screw over existing customers, with no flexibility. They assured me that they would at least refund all the existing customers they were screwing over and that my files would remain on their servers as long as I logged in every six months.
Determined to get my files, I tried downloading my folders, but nothing worked. Every attempt resulted in errors, no matter what device, operating system, or browser I used. Multiple emails to customer service yielded zero help.
With unreliable internet while traveling, I drove to a location with gigabit internet, hoping to download my files. Yet, even with a strong connection, Dropbox's download system kept failing. Their rules state that you can’t download more than 10,000 files or 250 GB at a time, but even when I tried smaller downloads, they failed.
At this point, I regretted not paying Dropbox’s extortion for larger storage, as that's not how I roll. Their lack of support left me feeling scammed and defeated. Now, I have a nine-month gap in my journey’s documentation the proof locked in the gates Dropbox hell, but accessing it is nearly impossible.
Now when I log in I get this message "Your team is in locked state. If still in locked state after August 19, 2024, it’ll be deleted permanently" so I'm not sure what loopholes I might have to jump through to retrieve my files, but I have very low confidence that my files will remain stored on Dropbox as I was quoted by the customer representative.
I must admit, as far as rackets go, this is a pretty good one. I've traveled to some sketchy third-world countries where people are quite clever with their scams. But for a first-world country to use a bait-and-switch at this scale is one of the most clever, albeit scamming and deceptive, practices I've ever seen. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of their customers paid the extra money because they didn't want the headache of switching to an honest company.
For anyone considering Dropbox for extensive storage needs, beware of potential policy changes and be prepared for possible technical issues. My journey continues, but my trust in Dropbox does not.
