For custom tags yes but it requires no more effort than creating a folder. In fact when you think about what a folder really is it's simply a graphic that represents a tag.
I could have a folder structure that is Documents > 2011> Work> Presentations
Which easily is duplicatable as Tags.
The power of metadata becomes evident when the computer is smart enough to do much of a heavy lifting for you. For instance in Final Cut Pro X once you import video it analyzes the video and categorizes shots by their type. Close up, long shots, multiple people etc. You don't have to lift a finger and smart folders allow you to see these organized shots. Apple's moving away from every proliferating bins to a smarter tag/metadata system that is customizable (your own keywords and computer generated keywords)
While this may seem off topic Dropbox engineers probably took considerable effort to make sure all file attributes remained with the file despite that file being sent across their cloud infrastructure. A job well done on their part and likely these smarts are why Steve Jobs offered to acquire them (rumored).
Apple isn't going for metatags so much as every program has a place for its files. You've got metatags in iTunes and whatnot, but mostly it's an app-centric you want access to your documents, you open up a document editor type setup. This isn't a terrible idea for the mom and dad types. It's not confusing in the least. Quite the opposite in fact, it's very straight forward.
But what about people like me? Say I'm working on one of my cheesy little 3D projects. I've got a small library of texture source shots, each one organized almost anal retentively by type and subtype. I want a brick? Go to the Bricks folder. Want swampy bricks? bricks\swampy bricks. This can be done easily with metatags. All I'd have to do there is search for swampy bricks, and there it is, all waiting for me, ready to edit.
After this, things get weird. I'll make multiple versions of the same swampy brick tutorial. I'll come up with better ideas as to what looks better, and save multiple iterative files the farther and farther I get. If I don't like the way something turned out later, or I just want to see what something will look like with an earlier version, I'll revert. Normally, I'll make a folder on my desktop and start piling all the resulting .psd and .tga files into it. But what if I only have access to metatags? I guess instead of having a handy folder with names like swampy_bricks_1.tga, swampy_bricks_2.tga, I'd be tagging everything as swampy_bricks_1, swampy_bricks_2, then doing a search for these files to open them up.
How is this any different than what I'm doing now? What if I want to look at my projects files long after I'm done? Instead of having to drill down through multiple folders, I'll be drilling down through a big ass database of tagged .tga files. It's not any better, not really any worse. To me, it's different for the sake of being different.
And then what happens when I start modelling and painting my UVs? I'll be using this .tga file I made, and mix them with other .tga files all culled from multiple source images. What if I want to keep all my source images in one spot, yet still keep them tied to the project for easy access in case I need them later? What do I do with my WIP shots? If I want to test them out to see how they currently look while I'm working on them? What do I do to separate the final results from those? With a folder setup, all I have to do is make subfolders. It'd be like this...
\project
\\Source Pictures
\\WIP
\\Final Textures
With metatags, I'd have to tag each and every image specifically with a huge string of search words. If I wanted to keep track of specific version of a specific texture in the making, I'd have to load it down with tags like swamp_project, UV, brick_test, WIP_1, red_color_test, ect, ect. I'd have to get more and more and more specific to sort it out from the other similar files in the project, let alone all the tens of billions of other files strewed across my metatag driven file system. This is opposed to a folder setup, where I can slap a quick name on it and throw it into a subfolder. If I want to find that file, I open said subfolder off a folder on my desktop, and give it a quick eyeball.
When it comes to complicated projects, a metatag only system isn't really any easier than a folder setup. Quite the opposite in fact, because you have to get almost achingly specific to keep track of things instead of just, you know, being moderately organized.
Plus, what happens when I want to reorganize after I'm done? Usually, I'll move the folder off my desktop to my dropbox projects folder. That's a drag a drop between two windows. In a metatag setup, I'd have to go through and edit the strings on the umpteen files I've made to sort it into a new category. Like my source shots. Once I'm done with them for the project, I dump them into a big source shots folder. Metatags? I guess I could label it source_shot, project_x, so I could find it as a source shot, AND project X. But when I'm done, I'll have to go and edit out the "project_x" or risk having a ton of junk data build up. If I'm too lax with the tag editing, then over time, I'll have this huge mess of potential search strings on my hands. Editing a whole crap-ton of tags on multiple files isn't nearly as easy as lasso selecting, cutting, and pasting it all into a new spot.
Holy crap, I can't believe I wrote all that. This isn't a post, it's a damn DISSERTATION!
