[AstroDogCatcher]

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now.

Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

[branon]

Yeah at first glance this service's rollout seems terrible. You are dogged all through the checkout process with dark patterns and threats that your device will cost more while doing less if you don't subscribe... why would I buy this at all then?

[zzless]

Indeed. I truly hope that PineNote takes off: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/

[MisterTea]

I am not crazy about the PineNote design as the SoC and memory are well beyond what I would consider efficient for an eInk tablet who's primary role is to replace paper and pencil.

[threefour]

There's a saying that for every trend there's an anti-trend. I do wonder when we'll reach a critical mass of subscription services such that a preference against subscriptions in general becomes a trend.

[emsy]

I don’t care about subscriptions in general and why should I? Netflix adds new content and my VPS is also a subscription, it just doesn’t call itself that. They have running costs and I’m not dependent on them. But there are services where the sole intention of the subscription is to generate a steady cash flow (almost all software, things like ink catridge subscriptions), subscriptions where the platform prohibits alternatives (iCloud) and bait and switch offers like the remarkable. These should be better regulated.

[ghaff]

In general, I don't mind subscriptions for the streaming services (so long as they're easy to cancel). I get a few, keep my eye on how much I'm using them, and cancel any that aren't giving me value. I can always get back in if I want to some day.

My philosophy is that there's pretty much no content I can't live without and the amount I save from canceling my cable TV pays for the other subs and more.

Software subscriptions I'm much more leery of. I do get Lightroom/Photoshop but I use LR a lot so don't really mind.

[JKCalhoun]

Already passed that point for me. Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Cable TV, Spotify? Nope.

I pay for larger iCloud storage and I have a library card.

[1123581321]

The library card is more about making use of an existing subscription since they cost $100-200/year per family in taxes or increased rental costs. :)

(I’m a big fan of the library.)

[abhinav22]

It’s hard because subscription services hit a sweet spot in human psychology - cheap on a monthly basis so many are happy (can you go back to paying 400$ for software unless it’s something you are 100% guaranteed to want and use for a long time), and expensive in the long run so businesses are happy (also recurring stable revenues)

It’s unfortunate, but I don’t see a reversal any time soon. If I was a developer I would also want to do subscription based services, would you (put yourself in the shoes of someone running a software company)?

It’s criminal how many times I have paid for Microsoft Office though.

[AstroDogCatcher]

I think we just need to be much more discerning about the added value from a subscription.

In the case of some SaaS tools I pay for (like Todoist), I don't resent the model because I've seen steady improvements and the cost is low enough relative to the value I feel like I get. If they increased the price more than ~20%, I would probably cancel and use an alternative.

Netflix is different; I actually don't watch much content and would happily live without it, but it appears to be good enough value during the times I do use it, particularly given that I'm well aware of how expensive their products are to create in the first place.

The problems with reMarkable here are two-fold. Firstly, the existence of any subscription is problematic when the device has such a high up-front cost. Secondly, the prices they have chosen far exceed the value their "extra" services can offer. If they had priced it at $12 per year I would have probably grumbled but accepted it. By $24 we are around my personal tipping point where I think they are being unreasonable and I want to get out of the ecosystem. The real price of around $96 is totally absurd and makes me actively root against the company, at least enough to write these long comments and post them into the void.

[slightwinder]

My impression is that the reMarkable has pretty poor hardware, and a rather exotic software (for a tablet). Which means they are limited in what they can do on the device, and the support they can harvest from community. Which also means, outsourcing stuff to the cloud is a natural effect, which means demanding money for running the cloud is also natural.

For similar reasons the device is expensive and still has a rather poor situation because it's quite special, with a relative small market. Which means it's trapped in a situation where it needs more supporting customers to deliver a good device, but to gain more customers it needs to deliver a good experience.

[AstroDogCatcher]

I actually think the hardware (at least in gen2) is pretty good, and the software has progressed from "OK but a bit rough" to also being pretty good. I can accept the high device price given what a niche market they have, but the subscription prices are a massive over-reach relative to the value delivered. Charging business customers (eg for more flexible isolated/shared storage accounts and other collaboration features) would have made sense, but the current model feels like they just plucked a number out of the air based on what other subscriptions cost, with no reference to the consumer value delivered.

[kayodelycaon]

The hardware for the gen 2 is pretty good in my opinion. The only "exotic software" is the notetaking app, the rest of the system is linux. The device is running ssh and the root password is in the licenses file.

That's a lot more than you get from most devices of this type.

[slightwinder]

> The hardware for the gen 2 is pretty good in my opinion.

My 5 year old android-tablet has more ram and cpu than the gen2 remarkable. So I assume they outsourced parts to the cloud simply because it's not running well enough on the tablet itself.

> the rest of the system is linux

Linux, especially on tablets is very exotic. There is no way to benefit from the big ecosystem on android or iOS. Everything must come from the users, the company or regulary desktop-linux, which is not optimized for tabled or eInk. Linux is a good selling point for hackers and nerds, but irrelevant for casual users.

[burkaman]

The reMarkable is not supposed to compete with an Android tablet, think of it more like a Kindle you can write on.

The hardware is perfect for the target audience and there are very few comparable products, but the software is pretty bare-bones and most people have issues with it.

[AlotOfReading]

It's also worth noting that unlike the broader tablet market, eInk readers commonly use Linux. Kindle and Kobo devices are examples.

[kayodelycaon]

I think you have an issue with the entire class of eink notebooks because both of these points are completely immaterial to their designed purpose.

You want a general purpose eink tablet. The reMarkable is most definitely not.

[AstroDogCatcher]

I assume the hardware targets battery life rather than performance; the lack of on-device features is quite deliberate. As far as cloud offloading goes, the only thing which seems to match that framing is the handwriting recognition, which is honestly pretty rubbish and I'd happily live without.

[enduser]

Your Android tablet probably does not last for two weeks of daily use on a single charge. The reMarkable 2 is power-sipping, especially with wireless disabled, without compromising note-taking or PDF-reading experiences.

[KingOfCoders]

What Android tablet with eInk did you buy that can display A4? Id be interested.

[kayodelycaon]

There is one actually. https://shop.boox.com/products/maxlumi2

[KingOfCoders]

Do you have experience with that one? Does it work with A4? The reMarkable works but could be slightly bigger for two-column A4 scientific papers.

[syshum]

I like hardware. Love it infact.

For me the subscription service itself is not the issue, it is far far far too expensive for what they offer in it, and they have broken my trust.

The first thing I did after their announcement was disable auto-updates, I dont really use their cloud services anyway prefering to interact with the device either with SSH or a 3rd party tool (RCU), my fear now is a future update will disable SSH and the ability for people to opt-out of their cloud.

I am grandfathered in, so I get it for free, but I have no intention of using

Today if I needed to replace my device I would buy a SuperNote A5X

[COGlory]

disabling ssh would violate GPL licensing, right?

[Fnoord]

No, what makes you think that? OpenSSH isn't even GPL.

[chrismorgan]

Excerpt from my reMarkable → settings → Help → Copyrights and licenses → General information:

> The General Public License version 3 and the Lesser General Public License version 3 also requires you as an end-user to be able to access your device to be able to modify the copyrighted software licensed under these licenses running on it.

> To do so, this device acts as an USB ethernet device, and you can connect using the SSH protocol using the username 'root' and the password 'hunter2'.

(Incidentally, “an USB”—are they pronouncing “usb” as one syllable or something?)

So COGlory is actually roughly right. They could disable SSH, but would need to replace it with something at least vaguely similar for GPLv3 and LGPLv3 compliance for other parts of the software.

[xboxnolifes]

No subscription is an option. I'm not sure how much of your own sync you could setup, but the subscription isn't forced upon you.

[AstroDogCatcher]

You can do your own sync in a hacky manner - but if I were going down that route, I'd just choose one of the more open (and cheaper) alternative devices.

[dabedee]

Pray do tell of those more open (and cheaper) alternative devices?

[charbuff]

I have a BOOX Max Lumi, it has all those features, for free. Plus is a fully functioning android tablet.

[Uberphallus]

Not sure it's any open (Kobo devices usually are hackable), but Kobo Elipsa[0] is feature par with Remarkable 2.

[0] https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-elipsa

[nottorp]

A friend of mine uses an Onyxbook (not sure what model) extensively for note taking and he seems pretty happy with it. Software developer with a bit of math thrown in, to get an idea of what he writes on it.

[AstroDogCatcher]

I'm being a bit future-looking here and considering alternatives to the gen3 reMarkable, not the current hardware. Specifically, the PineNote seems like it could fill the niche for me.

[kayodelycaon]

I'm in the market for alternatives. What equivalent devices are both cheaper and more open? I haven't found any. :(

[sofixa]

The Onyx Boox series come in different sizes and are just Android with a custom launcher, and they're cheaper and with more choice (most notably regarding screen size).

Caution however, the company violates the GPL, which might be a deal-breaker for some.

[legostormtroopr]

I got a Supernote and its a bit cheaper and has really great features. Remarkable shies away from anything but writing, so sync is limited - while the supernote has great calendar sync thats come in handle for note taking.

[outworlder]

> Not everything needs to be a subscription.

Everything needs to be a subscription, according to Wall Street.

[macjohnmcc]

I got the e-mail to grandfather me in due to my recent purchase of the second gen device. It was a tough sell for many due to price before a subscription may doom it further.