Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by guico 1133 days ago
Thanks for the feedback.

What does "owning" the content mean to you? You own it to the same extension you own it in Notion, Linear or any web based tool.

The login could be optional but the only reason is there is to provide a feature: automatic backups and sync across devices.

1 comments

Owning my content means it's on my local drive, like with Obsidian (or, well, Apple Notes). I realize that may not be the case with a web-based tool, like Notion or Asana; that is justifiable, but I'd like to know that from the outset. This is where a simple product page explaining the functions and features would have helped.

Automatic backups and sync are great—ordinarily I'd consider that a valuable feature—but if that's optional, as you said, it should not be a requirement for using the tool. Besides making me suspicious, it's a speed bump. I was ready to experiment with your tool until I realized I had to set up an account. At that point, I decided I didn't want to bother.

My assumption is that, until proven otherwise, every tool is trying to sell my data or drive me towards a subscription. If you're doing that, be clear about it. If you're not doing that, be very clear about it. Clarity would engender a lot of good will here, since most of us have learned to assume the worst from SaaS tools. Not having ulterior motives is the exception, and that's great, but I think you need to be extra clear about that.

Yeah, I see this completely. I'd need myself if I wasn't the maker and hence 100% sure that there is not intention to sell data.

My plan is to have mobile apps soon and make multi-device use a core part of the experience. Which is why I went with mandatory login although it makes little sense so far (since there is no really multi-device support). I just didn't want to build things twice since I'm doing this alone...

That said, I'll have to go with your other suggestion which is offering good ways to export & backup into your own storage (local or otherwise) and be upfront about this option.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!