Your average user (even business user) will have no idea what a "version control system" is. Only developers will and they'll recognize that Dropbox only has rudimentary versioning capabilities [1]. There's zero risk of them confusing the two.
The "version hell" issue that David Pogue describes is something that most geeks solved long ago, but is far more common. There are millions of computer users who either don't have access to a file server, or their job requires them to collaborate on file sharing tasks with users that don't have access to the same file server they do. The work flow goes something like this:
* Allison creates a Word document with an agreement in it
* Bob and Mike need to review the document, so Allison emails it to the both of them
* Bob submits his revisions first, so Allison incorporates the changes, then emails the updated copy to both Bob and Mike
* Mike had previously saved the document from his email and had started his edits
* Mike submits the "old version" of the document with revisions, but many conflict with the changes that Bob submitted
* Allison is left with the task of sorting out the differences
For use cases like this, Dropbox is like "OMG it's magic!" to regular users. There's still the issue of editing conflicts (Dropbox doesn't support simultaneous editing), but this is much easier to work around than the game of "telephone" involved with emailing documents.
The moral of the story is that as geeks it's really easy to take our toolset for granted. "Solved problems" for us are a daily headache for your average person.
The "version hell" issue that David Pogue describes is something that most geeks solved long ago, but is far more common. There are millions of computer users who either don't have access to a file server, or their job requires them to collaborate on file sharing tasks with users that don't have access to the same file server they do. The work flow goes something like this:
* Allison creates a Word document with an agreement in it
* Bob and Mike need to review the document, so Allison emails it to the both of them
* Bob submits his revisions first, so Allison incorporates the changes, then emails the updated copy to both Bob and Mike
* Mike had previously saved the document from his email and had started his edits
* Mike submits the "old version" of the document with revisions, but many conflict with the changes that Bob submitted
* Allison is left with the task of sorting out the differences
For use cases like this, Dropbox is like "OMG it's magic!" to regular users. There's still the issue of editing conflicts (Dropbox doesn't support simultaneous editing), but this is much easier to work around than the game of "telephone" involved with emailing documents.
The moral of the story is that as geeks it's really easy to take our toolset for granted. "Solved problems" for us are a daily headache for your average person.
1 - http://www.dropbox.com/help/11