You'd think so, right? It's a little more than that though. Dropbox is useful to me for the following reasons:
--It is an easy way to share music with a couple friends who aren't tech savvy. Installing it was easy for them and I was able to say "just drag it from iTunes to your dropbox folder" and it worked. Other ways of sharing were too complex.
--It keeps software that doesn't have built in syncing synced. I use it to sync 1Password and more importantly (to me) PersonalBrain between my home and work computers. It works fast and flawlessly.
--It's an easy way to transfer files from home/work. Sometimes I'll download an app or something that I know I'll end up redownloading again at home. With dropbox I just throw it in there and when I get home I don't have to find the download link and wait for it to download, I just open the folder and there it is.
--It keeps a few files I use all the time available from anywhere. Mostly ebooks, a couple videos and a few documents and templates (resume etc.).
Overall though it's the ease of use and reliability that keeps me using it. Even if it could do all that but was a pain to use/install I'd probably still be searching for other solutions.
Exactly as I said. It basically uploads and downloads files; your hyphenated examples are all under the category of "uploading and downloading". It does other things, but that's basically it. I hate it when I speak plain facts and get everybody disagreeing with me.
I think the problem that you are running into is that while the concept is simple and essentially what they have done is make it simple to upload/download files and easily share across computers with yourself and others, this is a nontrivial problem. On top of that, the implementation works seamlessly across different operating systems. The reaction you are running into is probably akin to people who love the iPod. A device which does one thing and does it well.
As you have seen others mention, by creating a solution to a nontrivial problem (and if you have ever had to deal with file synchronization you know this is not simple) it has enabled usage scenarios that were previously too difficult to accomplish or at least not worth the hassle. So I can understand people's reactions to your comments.
--It is an easy way to share music with a couple friends who aren't tech savvy. Installing it was easy for them and I was able to say "just drag it from iTunes to your dropbox folder" and it worked. Other ways of sharing were too complex.
--It keeps software that doesn't have built in syncing synced. I use it to sync 1Password and more importantly (to me) PersonalBrain between my home and work computers. It works fast and flawlessly.
--It's an easy way to transfer files from home/work. Sometimes I'll download an app or something that I know I'll end up redownloading again at home. With dropbox I just throw it in there and when I get home I don't have to find the download link and wait for it to download, I just open the folder and there it is.
--It keeps a few files I use all the time available from anywhere. Mostly ebooks, a couple videos and a few documents and templates (resume etc.).
Overall though it's the ease of use and reliability that keeps me using it. Even if it could do all that but was a pain to use/install I'd probably still be searching for other solutions.