Hi Matt,
Here's the email in full:

Hi Richard,

We’re always looking to improve the Dropbox sharing experience. The Public folder was the first sharing method we introduced, and since then, we’ve built even better ways for you to share securely and work together with your team.

As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Basic users will be able to use the Public folder until March 15, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.

If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.

In addition to shared links, we have a number of sharing options designed to make collaboration easier and give you more control. To learn more, visit our Help Center.

The Dropbox team


As you can see, no mention of upgrading and it seems that if you create new links outside the Public folder they will work. The annoying thing is all the links that people have previously created to their Public folder files and posted here will be lost.

Regards,

Richard Williams
Sydney
Australia