If that hard / soft link hides an ssh connection behind it, and the ssh connection is presented as SSHFS[1] (since that's practically what NFS is), then I really don't see much of a difference. Protocol, implementation, sure. But it's the same end result.
The main difference is that you are always one click away from switching between the "nfs mode" (so to speak) and the fully cached offline mode, which is the default for Dropbox and is unavailable with network filesystems. And I mean switch file-by-file or directory-by-directory.
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Wonder how this compares to NFS/pNFS.
It doesn't. It's basically offering local proxies for remote files.
NFS was/is a networked filesystem protocol, where multiple clients access the same remote volumes.
Is that substantially different somehow?
Yes, in the same way that ssh to a server to get a file is not the same as a hard or soft link.
If that hard / soft link hides an ssh connection behind it, and the ssh connection is presented as SSHFS[1] (since that's practically what NFS is), then I really don't see much of a difference. Protocol, implementation, sure. But it's the same end result.
[1]: https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs
The main difference is that you are always one click away from switching between the "nfs mode" (so to speak) and the fully cached offline mode, which is the default for Dropbox and is unavailable with network filesystems. And I mean switch file-by-file or directory-by-directory.