I'd say it could be troubling for dropbox. It's probably game over for https://aerofs.com though unless AeroFS drastically changes/pivots.
For dropbox, they do have some advantages. Bittorrent brings up thoughts of piracy. Dropbox doesn't have that reputation and would be much more acceptable in corporate environments. Additionally, Dropbox has integration with a lot of apps and I don't see that happening with BT Sync anytime soon. Web access to your files, versioning, etc.
Advantages of BTSync? Free. No limits. Files not stored on 3rd party servers. It's fast. Transferring large files with Dropbox is painful. BTSync is just getting started.
Why would this be game over for AeroFS? Yes, BT Sync is direct competition, but I've used AeroFS for over two years now, since their early alphas and AeroFS works almost flawlessly for P2P sync. It also has S3 sync for their team server which works very well. AeroFS is free for everything BT Sync does, it's only when you get into features that BT Sync doesn't handle at all that you would need to pay for AeroFS. I think AeroFS could work on their marketing and software UX, but so could BT Sync.
AeroFS's showstopper for me was no support for 32bit machines - my largest collection of storage is an old Mac Mini with half a dozen large usb drives plugged in, but AeroFS wont run on it. (and the single core Mac Mini can't be upgraded to a version of OS X that'll run 64bit java).
Even AeroFS has Dropbox's handicap of 'you have to put everything in one folder' or mess around with symlinks. It ought to have been a little improvised at least.
1. A service with the word "torrent" in it will never be adopted by a corporate entity. (edit: "typical" corporation. Technology companies don't count)
2. You may be overestimating how much the average person cares about file storage size, 3rd party servers, or transferring large files.
A service with the word "torrent" in it will never be adopted by a corporate entity
Absolutely not true. Eg: I know film theaters use private Bittorrent networks to distribute the multi-GB master copies of their films to cinemas (yes, they have hardware DRM etc where you need a unique code to be able to play, but they have no problem using the best tool for the job).
@1. You might have missed how many game companies distribute the patches nowadays.
@2. Indeed. To find broader adoption by private users it MUST be click and go. But I don't see a reason why BTSynch can't achieve that in the short term even.
1. True, but game companies are still in the tech-friendly sector. For an average manager at OfficeCorp, a torrent is some illegal website you download stuff from.
2. It could, but BT isn't built around the idea of dead simplicity, like DropBox is. Perceived branding does matter.
If I was aspera or filesociety, I'd be rather worried.
I'm planning on using this to sync terrorbytes between london and LA. Why should I pay the ridiculous cost of a thinly wrapped rsync over UDP when I can have it for free? (the latency between the two means that the maximum throughput on tcp based protocols get about 2-3 megs a second tops)
I will be testing the throughput of torrentsync. Currently it appears to be painfully single threaded (it looks to be python)
A corporate entity is simply a registered company. I have several corporate entities, which I would describe as "typical" corporations. I would have no strong feelings one way or another about using such a service.
You might be thinking about a publicly listed company, which is far from a typical company.
It seems to me that Dropbox is becoming complacent. They still only offer 2 GB of storage for their free plan.
Someone else here commented about using Bittorrent to sync their music library, since the 2 GB that Dropbox offers would probably be too little space. But now there are new Dropbox-like services offering MUCH more space. The largest that I've seen so far is Copy.com, which offers 15 GB for free or 20 GB free if you sign up through a referral link (in case you want to try it out: https://copy.com?r=odoDlI).
Dropbox has name recognition, but how long can they get by on that when competitors offer 10x more space?
Just as Copy.com offers more space with referrals, so does Dropbox. With my student account and referrals, I jumped up to about 20GB. They also do pretty well with other bonuses (e.g. new HTC phone netted me an additional 23GB for two years).
For dropbox, they do have some advantages. Bittorrent brings up thoughts of piracy. Dropbox doesn't have that reputation and would be much more acceptable in corporate environments. Additionally, Dropbox has integration with a lot of apps and I don't see that happening with BT Sync anytime soon. Web access to your files, versioning, etc.
Advantages of BTSync? Free. No limits. Files not stored on 3rd party servers. It's fast. Transferring large files with Dropbox is painful. BTSync is just getting started.