So I just subscribed to a year of DataOrganizerd ($20) even though I probably won't use it as is. The app just doesn't have the features I need in a lightweight database. But in an email exchange with the developer, I believe his goal is to make DO a legitimate Bento alternative. So my subscription is an investment in helping to achieve that. Does anyone else here make a similar purchase decision? Just curious.

Steve Z

Yes I have. I recently purchased the upgrade to DEVONthink 3 and paid for the highest level, even though I won't use all the features soon, because I've intensively used all prior versions without paying anything more than an upgrade fee from v1 to v2 about 9 or so years ago. Considering the benefit I've gained in my business from using DEVONthink over the years, I feel it only fair to share that back to the developer.

I participate in several betas, and if I decide after the beta to continue using the app, I always pay for a full license rather than accept a free or discounted license. I encourage developers to not give away licenses. They made the investment, and should retain all the benefit.

Same here, but I haven't gone for the Server version. I also paid for DTPO not *too* long ago. ;-)

Paul Korm wrote:

Yes I have. I recently purchased the upgrade to DEVONthink 3 and paid
for the highest level, even though I won't use all the features soon,
because I've intensively used all prior versions without paying anything
more than an upgrade fee from v1 to v2 about 9 or so years ago.
Considering the benefit I've gained in my business from using DEVONthink
over the years, I feel it only fair to share that back to the developer.

I participate in several betas, and if I decide after the beta to
continue using the app, I always pay for a full license rather than
accept a free or discounted license. I encourage developers to not give
away licenses. They made the investment, and should retain all the
benefit.

Another long-term investment in Devonthink Pro 3. And one in Tinderbox development.

I agree with Paul's type of investment. That is a reasonable investment given that devontechnologies has a track record of supporting users for a long time.

But, Stephen's kind of investment sounds very strange to me. Maybe I am a selfish person: maybe because I have little money. I never did this kind of investment. I generally avoid subscription software like a plague---even softwares I like & use very much like AtlasTi, I am avoiding them because of the licensing model (--uck subsription; what if I don't get an extra money to pay for their yearly fees, am I screwed?).

But, paying for a software just hoping the developer will bring the feature I like-- sounds a very risky investment.

There are many situations that the investment will not go to fruition.
- the developer might not like the feature
- the developer might prefer other features
- the developer might not further develop the software
- you might lose the interest on the software in the long run
- a better alternative came by
etc...

Yes to buying updates that I might not even really need, just to encourage the developper. However I usually say no to subscriptions, unless this business model is absolutely justified ( and most of the time it's not ,for me ).

I generally try to avoid subscriptions, but I am desperate for a simple Bento database alternative. I am using TapForms now, but it is way more complex than I need, especially since I only need it sporadically, therefore the routines don't become second nature. That's why I am going to see what DataOrganizer becomes. Trust me, if there isn't significant movement toward becoming the app I need after one year, I won't re-subscribe.

I have to say I expected that the people on this forum would be generous with developers. And I wasn't wrong.

Steve Z

The only subscription I have that regularly results in new features is Tinderbox. I think I started the annual payments during v5 and since then v6, v7, and v8, all with sophisticated features, have come along. I trust Mark Bernstein, and have no doubt he will deliver innovation and tell us when he no longer can. (May he live long and prosper.)

In other cases, less so. I paid in advance and was burned on the "Butler 5" scam -- it never materialized -- and for MailMate 2, which eventually showed up as an apparently perpetual beta. The few times I fell for crowdfunded gizmos on Kickstarter, the things that were ultimately produced were underwhelming. I think the lesson is not "avoid ill-willed developers" -- though their being overly confident might be an issue -- the lesson is don't fall for tech bloggers flogging vaporware.

Dellu wrote:

But, paying for a software just hoping the developer will bring the
feature I like-- sounds a very risky investment.

I bought a lifetime subscription to outlinely for this reason, but I regret it as I think the app will never live up to its potential. Generally I only pay for what I actually use.

I've done this a lot over the years, paying for software I don't use just because I want to encourage the development of tools I admire, and acknowledge the work that goes into it. It probably doesn't provide significant income to the programmers, but maybe it buys them a nice lunch.

Paul Korm wrote:

I think the lesson is not
"avoid ill-willed developers" -- though their being overly confident
might be an issue -- the lesson is don't fall for tech bloggers flogging
vaporware.

Too many developers promise and then don't deliver. I make a point of trying never to promise anything in advance. Dates or features. It makes my life less stressful.

--

Andy Brice
https://www.hyperplan.com

Yes, for example, I'm supporting Joplin, which I hope will eventually become a capable Evernote alternative
https://www.patreon.com/joplin/posts

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Does anyone else here make a similar purchase decision? Just curious.

Akexander, a little off topic, but...

I no longer add anything to Evernote or use it for clipping, both because of cost and because it would no longer clip whole articles from the web on my Android phone.

I now use Pocket for all web clipping, and either Google docs or Dynalist for notes/writing.

I have looked at Standard Notes, Nimbus, and Joplin. My question is what draws you to Joplin? Thanks.

Daly

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Yes, for example, I'm supporting Joplin, which I hope will eventually
become a capable Evernote alternative
https://www.patreon.com/joplin/posts

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Does anyone else here make a similar purchase decision? Just curious.

Well, for one thing, it's open source. It aims to cover all the platforms that I use, including Linux, it already has a web clipper and it uses Markdown.

I also appreciate the developers' focused approach, similar to Cintanotes, and I like that they asked for support via Patreon--ask and you shall receive.

Some interesting views can be found below
https://zblesk.net/blog/leaving-evernote-for-joplin/
https://openschoolsolutions.org/joplin-open-source-evernote-alternative/
https://www.slashgear.com/evernote-open-source-alternatives-part-3-joplin-31551544/

as well as MadaboutDana's original post introducing Joplin to this forum:
https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/8080

I still use Evernote, but in the long term am looking for simpler solutions.


Daly de Gagne wrote:

I have looked at Standard Notes, Nimbus, and Joplin. My question is what
draws you to Joplin? Thanks.

Alexander, thank you. I took a look at Joplin, and one drawback for me is markdown. I fail to see its appeal or a reason forbit in a general purpose notes program. I tolerate it in Dynalist but much prefer the approach taken by EN and Nimbus. In Standard Notes you have to buy the extensions package to get away from compulsory markdown.

Daly



Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Well, for one thing, it's open source. It aims to cover all the
platforms that I use, including Linux, it already has a web clipper and
it uses Markdown.

I also appreciate the developers' focused approach, similar to
Cintanotes, and I like that they asked for support via Patreon--ask and
you shall receive.

Some interesting views can be found below
https://zblesk.net/blog/leaving-evernote-for-joplin/
https://openschoolsolutions.org/joplin-open-source-evernote-alternative/
https://www.slashgear.com/evernote-open-source-alternatives-part-3-joplin-31551544/

as well as MadaboutDana's original post introducing Joplin to this
forum:
https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/8080

I still use Evernote, but in the long term am looking for simpler
solutions.


Daly de Gagne wrote:
>I have looked at Standard Notes, Nimbus, and Joplin. My question is
what
>draws you to Joplin? Thanks.

This made me smile. I've tried to make myself like markdown a few times thinking that if so many others that I respect think it's so great, then there must be something I'm missing. Though it's very likely that I am the weak link in being unable to grok markdown, I'm glad I'm not the only one in this boat.

Daly de Gagne wrote:
Alexander, thank you. I took a look at Joplin, and one drawback for me
is markdown. I fail to see its appeal or a reason forbit in a general
purpose notes program. I tolerate it in Dynalist but much prefer the
approach taken by EN and Nimbus. In Standard Notes you have to buy the
extensions package to get away from compulsory markdown.

I’m afraid I’m totally against subscriptions and only pay where I’m forced to. Since the advent of subscriptions, my monthly outgoing tripled, so I dumped many apps. My problem with many developers such as Ulysses, is that they burned their most loyal customers. They offered and upgrade for a week or so, so if you missed it your previous support meant nothing. I’ve also seen quite a number of apps that received crowd funding / kickstarter support sell out to large corporates upon becoming successful leaving it’s loyal customers in the dust.

This breeds no loyalty from a user perspective.

Nathan, thanks - I thought I was the only odd one out when it came to markdown. It used to be easy to work with text in an easy way. Markdown may serve a purpose for some but, frankly, I am peeved that the ease of of use which we enjoyed in premarkdown days has been removed. Why don't developers give users a choice and not, as is 6case with Standard Note make it available at added cost?

nathanb wrote:

This made me smile. I've tried to make myself like markdown a few times
thinking that if so many others that I respect think it's so great, then
there must be something I'm missing. Though it's very likely that I am
the weak link in being unable to grok markdown, I'm glad I'm not the
only one in this boat.


>Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Alexander, thank you. I took a look at Joplin, and one drawback for me
>is markdown. I fail to see its appeal or a reason forbit in a general
>purpose notes program. I tolerate it in Dynalist but much prefer the
>approach taken by EN and Nimbus. In Standard Notes you have to buy the
>extensions package to get away from compulsory markdown.

I do take Nathan/Daly's point about markdown, but there are a fair number of good apps for macOS that support both markdown and rich text (e.g. Notebooks, FSNotes, Scrivener, just off the top of my head, and probably many others; those three apps are currently one-off payments rather than subscriptions, too).

For Windows, I dunno. But I'd have thought markdown was more of a rarity in the Windows world?

The reason us markdowners like markdown is that it leaves you with raw text files, so no proprietary tie-in (and I'd argue that even RTF is a kind of proprietary format, given the number of different versions that exist). This is a key advantage of markdown, which is one of the reasons I've found myself moving away from former favourites like Ulysses, Outlinely (both of which use proprietary XML to create their libraries), and back to simpler software like iaWriter, Notebooks, FSNotes, Joplin et al. (both of which create/navigate individual .txt/.md files which can also be manipulated with any number of other apps/programs, including search software like FoxTrot Pro – so no tie-in).

Why get so neurotic about tie-in? Well, a simple perusal of the many, many apps that have been discussed here is enough to show you why: so many of them have gone the way of the dodo. So many once glorious, much-lauded, beloved apps are no longer with us, but have made their way to that great archive in the sky. What's more, so many of them are unusable, because their creators - for what are, I'm sure, perfectly good reasons - decided not to make them publicly available upon expiry. Or kindly did so, only for the app to lose its compatibility with the latest operating systems somewhere along the line.

Whereas UTF-8 (or, at a pinch, UTF-16) is unlikely to suffer this fate - or at least, not for a long time to come. Fussy as markdown is, that's why many of us prefer it ;-)

Cheers!
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

For Windows, I dunno. But I'd have thought markdown was more of a rarity
in the Windows world?

Despite the sometimes infuriating sense that this forum ought to be called MacOutlinerSoftware, there are indeed many Markdown editors for Windows users. Here are some:

https://www.slant.co/topics/1852/~best-markdown-editors-for-windows

I doubt I'll get my wish, but each post about software, especially new software, should include whether the software is Mac, Windows, or whatever. That'll save Windows folks from wasting their time by following links to software they can't use.

I actually go out my way to avoid subscriptions. I am happy to support a developed but regular payments are for mortgages, bills etc. As a principle if an app goes subscription I will ditch it. If enough of us do this hopefully the trend will stop

This is why I was so glad my beloved DEVONthink eschewed the subscription model.

I do favour a "mixed economy" of subscription and non-subscription applications, and I am happy to pay subscriptions for a limited number of applications where I believe that the application is good, the developer is skilled and diligent and the subscription is justified by the benefits that I gain from it. (And I rely on sites like this one to help me make those judgments.)

In principle, Hugh, I follow the same thinking. However, when I realised just how many of my subscription apps were essentially offering much the same thing in a slightly different guise, I paused for thought and totted up the monthly bills - which were unexpectedly high.

So now I prioritise non-subscription apps over subscription ones, and am gradually removing all my subscriptions (with a couple of interesting exceptions, like Agenda, which IMHO hasn't matured yet).

Apple could solve this at a stroke by supporting upgrades, but clearly their thinking runs counter to this concept.

When it comes to monitoring and pruning subs, I've found the subscription list maintained by Apple in my macOS App Store account useful, plus one of the simple iOS subscription-list apps for software that falls beyond the app stores. The one I use is, ironically perhaps, called Outflow.

For me it's not so much about the principle of whether it's a subscription or a one-off payment but whether it's cross-platform with automatic sync (usually a web app with Android/iOS companions), which I prefer, or Windows only, which I don't want to invest into any more.

As the cross-platform ones tend to be subscription-based services, those are the only ones I seem to be buying these days.

As there is a limit to how many subscriptions I'm willing to pay for, this means my CRIMPing has pretty much come to an end.

Instead, it's more about replacing one subscription with another.