[montagg]

Wait. Sync is “free” if you want to use some other service other than Obsidian’s. I pay for Obsidian sync partially for slightly more convenience (fewer non-integrated points of failure) and also to support the app itself.

I’d gladly pay $1000 over a decade for a crucial tool. If the concern is open source and true longevity, I get it, you don’t get that here. But cost for value? Holy shit. $1000 over a decade is absolutely worth it for something you depend on.

If you’re a regular at a bar or restaurant, you pay an order of magnitude over $1000 a year for THAT service. This one is probably worth more.

I can, however, relate to the “every five years my system changes” problem. It’s not fun. At the same time, this is a reasonable cadence to re-evaluate things. If you found something perfect for you that works >5 years, holy crap. You are blessed. That honestly should not be the standard for tools these days—ESPECIALLY in a today’s world.

All that said: I don’t knock the author for trying to build software that can work for someone for 20 years or more. I salute that attempt—and I hope they can do it!—even if I think the specific details of how they got there are flawed.

[wiseowise]

That’s common thought process: “tool that I use more than 10 times a day to amplify my knowledge? $10 a month? Eye watering!”.

Oh well, time to grab that Uber eats for $20 third time this week.

[theshrike79]

People are really bad with quantifying things.

I can easily grab a few imperial stouts for the weekend for 20€ but will balk at paying for a search engine.

Until I did the math of use per euro and Kagi turned out to be well worth it. I just drink one beer less a month and it's paid for and I'm healthier too =)

[Chris2048]

The problem is that some things remain cheap by convention. Once you employ the above logic and show a willingness to pay for things, the rent-seekers will swoop in.

You can't break an imperial stout into parts and charge for each, and natural competition exist in supermarkets and/or even homebrew, limiting how much pubs/bars will charge.

The same is not true for computer service that can very easily become monopolised.

The addendum to "If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product", is "and if you are paying for the product, you are also still the product".

[Chris2048]

I think the rise of take-away services corresponds with a working professional middle-class for whom time spent cooking isn't worth the hourly rate of otherwise staying at work. Home cooking, or even eating out is still a much better proposition if you can afford the time.

I think professional tooling falls in the same category, but the problem I have is treating a general internet service such as a serach engine, or even an online encyclopedia as if it is also in the same category, where as I see it as a common utility, more akin to the availability of a library.

[Dylan16807]

There's a lot of tools that are very useful but I'm not going to spend that much on. My water bottle is one.

And I don't think food is a good comparison. Or renting a physical space, depending on what you get out of being a regular.

Still, the basic price of $50 a year for sync is something I wouldn't be very upset with... except my main goal is a collaborative setup with other people and I'm not paying 5x or more to make that work.

[KetoManx64]

It comes down to how much is your time worth. If you're a developer making $100K+ a year, a $1,000 over a decade is nothing if it increases your productivity 2-3X compared to your collegues, which considering the fact that some of my colleagues store their notes in Windows Notepad is a complete underestimation.

[coolcase]

So obsidian let's me get 40 hours of work had I used notepad for notes done in 13-20 hours?

[KetoManx64]

I store my code snippets, config templates, daily changelogs, todo lists, and note templates in Obsidian and use them probably dozens of times a day. I have keyboard shortcuts that open up specific notes that I copy code snippets and filepaths from. If you were to put me next to someone that was storing their notes in notepad I would bet you money that they take 2-3x as long as I do.

[Dylan16807]

Oh if you're saying you're 2-3x faster at using notes that's reasonable.

But an extra minute 20 times a day to reach the right section in notepad is still only 20 minutes.

If you're comparing against someone that doesn't do all the saving and automation you do at all, that's not a matter of what program they use.

[wiether]

> If you found something perfect for you that works >5 years, holy crap. You are blessed.

Having been unable to find an out-of-the-box app fitting my needs, I built my own personal finances app in 2012 and I'm using it weekly since then.

I'll probably work again on it one day because the technical stack is old, which makes it harder to host, but otherwise it still does exactly what I want, how I want it.

> That honestly should not be the standard for tools these days—ESPECIALLY in a today’s world.

Maybe I'm not interpreting it correctly, but you make it sound like having a perfect system for more than 5 years is unhealthy.

Whereas, I'd say it's quite the opposite.

Back to my finances app, since I'm using it I've been able to focus on improving/mastering other parts of my life. Not having to get back to find another system to manage my personal finances means that I'm able to focus on other stuff.

I have a hard time seeing how that would be a bad thing?

[spencerflem]

I think its not that its unhealthy, it's that things are unfortunately such that its arare and beautiful thing when it happens and if you expect more you are bound to be disappointed.

[ozyschmozy]

I don't disagree with the overall comment but this bit seems like extreme hyperbole:

> If you're a regular at a bar or restaurant, you pay an order of magnitude over $1000 a year for THAT service. This one is probably worth more.

An order of magnitude over 1k per year is almost $30 per day, every day.

[1123581321]

It’s missing commas; it should say “an order of magnitude [more], over $1000 a year, for…”

[coolcase]

Hyperbole for some but hypobole for others I am sure