[HN Gopher] 100% User-Supported
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100% User-Supported
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 114 points
Date : 2024-02-11 16:56 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stephango.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stephango.com)
| gavinhoward wrote:
| I have heard of Obsidian before; is it some kind of
| documentation/notes thing?
|
| The stuff in the blog post sound great, so as long as the code is
| open and modifiable by users, I might take a look.
| Macha wrote:
| It's a markdown based notes app. They do have Obsidian Publish
| which is a static site publishing/hosting tool from the notes
| that you could use for docs, but honestly I'd suggest something
| more explicitly designed for multi user for a documentation use
| case.
| mateusz_ wrote:
| Yep, like Notion. The main difference is that it stores all the
| data in text files on your drive/repo
| Yujf wrote:
| It is not open source. But because you are just editing
| markdown, you should not get locked in (however it does have
| some features and plugins that will not work anywhere else...)
| input_sh wrote:
| Even when they step away from Markdown, like for example the
| canvas feature (https://obsidian.md/canvas), they make sure
| to build it on top of JSON files instead of inventing a more
| proprietary format.
|
| Does any of the competition use it? Not that I'm aware of. If
| Obsidian disappeared tomorrow, could anyone reasonably
| replicate it? Yes.
|
| If you don't want to pay for sync, you have other options. If
| you want to publish your notes, you have other options.
| Technically you need a subscription to use it for commercial
| purposes, but they have no way of enforcing that, plus
| there's a carve out for freelancers and for those like me
| working for NGOs.
|
| The point I'm trying to make is that not only are they user-
| funded, but all of their revenue comes from the most optional
| subscriptions you're gonna find in a for-profit product.
| hammond wrote:
| You might like Joplin or Logseq, which are open source.
|
| I hope one day the folks at Obsidian will make it FOSS. I don't
| think it will negatively affect them at all.
| kfk wrote:
| I find the "principled software" part a bit hard to believe,
| considering bootstrapped companies change owners too, but the
| editing files part is interesting. In tina cms [1] they have
| "visual editing", which is the concept of editing stuff visually
| but pushing boring markdown/text files to github. Visual editing
| is an interesting way to avoid vendor lock-in but still provide a
| UI based way of doing things with text files.
|
| [1] https://tina.io/docs/contextual-editing/overview/
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| This is usually called WYSIWYG editing -
| https://blog.hubspot.com/website/wysiwyg-markdown-editor
| marban wrote:
| Everyone has a price.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Would be nicer if it was open source, like SiYuan Note.
| inferense wrote:
| the premise of this article is false. acreom [1] is VC backed,
| and doesn't implement any of the mentioned practices. No price
| subsidising (quite the opposite), no pressure to create lock-in
| or monetize user data etc. There's nothing wrong with being VC
| backed given the expectations between investors, the team and
| users are aligned.
|
| [1] https://acreom.com/
| kaoD wrote:
| > acreom is VC backed, and doesn't implement any of the
| mentioned practices
|
| ...yet.
|
| In typical VC fashion it will totally respect the user forever
| (wink, wink) until they want to actually cash out.
|
| PS: would've been a nice touch if you disclosed acreom is
| yours.
| inferense wrote:
| you're right, disclaimer: I am the founder
|
| not unless these values are provided by technical decisions
| over policies or promises.
|
| in acreom's case, you own the software as well as your data
| and there's not much we can do about it since we built it
| that way (local-first, offline with optional sync, e2ee,
| markdown without any acreom specific formatting)
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Until the founder gets tired, replacement CEO gets hired,
| and with VC board encouragement, sells to PE or BigCo who
| switches the defaults 18mo later. Users get the choice of
| dead, CVE-riddled software or following the company's
| structure.
|
| Conversely, with a less misaligned board & company
| structure, a friendly hire (e.g., internal) can take over
| and the board stays aligned. Ex: Mozilla. Protecting this
| is super hard... OpenAI has been quite a lesson in how fast
| things can change even with supposed governance structures:
| 100% reversal to closed code/weights/algorithms/data,
| $-first, & pro-military
| borski wrote:
| Being bootstrapped doesn't somehow absolve founders of that.
| It's a false sense of security.
|
| VC-backed companies eventually exit, yes, but bootstrapped
| companies often just... die.
|
| And, plenty of VC-backed companies do not commit the cardinal
| sins described in this article; lock-in, anti-user practices,
| and so on. I ran a VC-backed cybersecurity company for nearly
| 10 years, and we never engaged in any bad-for-the-user
| chicanery, and our VCs never pushed us to.
|
| This is an article to promote Obsidian (which is fine, and I
| have on my list to try) but on very shaky ground. Being
| bootstrapped, in and of itself, does not somehow imply
| Obsidian will be around longer or less crappy to their users.
|
| It's entirely about the founders and what they prioritize;
| not how they got their funding.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| but I think the point is that by being "100% user
| supported", the way to get rich is by getting more paying
| users by "making things people want" vs optimising a metric
| like "growth" in order to temporarily fool the next
| investor into overpaying at IPO or acquisition.
| wmf wrote:
| Sadly it's common to make things (not enough) people want
| and still run out of money.
| bearjaws wrote:
| If Obsidian went VC or public it would be enshittified in 5 years
| or less.
| Lariscus wrote:
| There is no guarantee that they wont do any of that in two
| weeks and since it is closed source you are basically forced to
| accept the enshittification or have to switch to another
| product. This is the reason I haven't tried Obsidian yet. I
| will never use another closed source note taking app again.
| kepano wrote:
| For portability and durability of your data I find that "File
| over app"[1] is more important than open source. These are
| all separate vectors:
|
| - VC vs user-supported
|
| - Files vs databases
|
| - Open formats vs proprietary formats
|
| - Open source vs closed source
|
| - Extensible vs non-extensible
|
| - Private vs privacy-invasive
|
| An open source app can still be VC-backed, store its data in
| a proprietary format, have terrible APIs, and include
| telemetry.
|
| 1: https://stephango.com/file-over-app
| Lariscus wrote:
| Good point, I want both. The app should use files and be
| open source.
| sircastor wrote:
| It's interesting to me that a competitive open source
| platform hasn't really shown up. I know it's all markdown,
| but given that it's closed source. Open source people love to
| make competitive open platforms.
| dtkav wrote:
| I am a huge proponent of open source software, but there's
| something to be said for building a sustainable lean
| business that can employ a handful of talented folks to
| work on continuously improving the product full time. It's
| hard to compete with that.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| I feel similarly, but this is specifically why I chose
| Obsidian, I've been a big Markdown/LaTeX user for years, and
| I jumped from vim to StackEdit to my own Nextcloud instance,
| and I've happily settled on Obsidian for the past 1.5 years.
|
| In each instance, my notes were pure Markdown files backed by
| a simple file system. I was able to bring my hoard of
| Markdown notes with me.
|
| As a bonus, I think there are a lot of technical Obsidian
| users who are ready to jump ship at the slightest whiff of
| shit. If Obsidian were ever bought out, I'd expect the Logseq
| contribution graph to go hockeystick shaped.
| loughnane wrote:
| I'd like to see some counterpoints. Which startups have been
| around for 15 years, took a bunch of VC money, but are as good to
| their users now as they've ever been?
|
| It's got to be a short list.
| meibo wrote:
| Opposed to that, the list of VC-funded software I'm using and
| enjoying now, which is nonetheless bound to or already on the
| way to turning into piles of garbage and wasted potential, is
| pretty long and it took me not even a minute to put it
| together.
|
| The ones I care about mostly don't even try to take my money in
| any reasonable way.
| loughnane wrote:
| I've felt that way in the past. Been productive with VC-
| backed software and couldn't imagine using anything else.
|
| Over the years though the case against it gets stronger and
| stronger. Evernote, Google reader, quora, and picasa are a
| few off the top of my head that I spent a lot of time with
| only for it to be abandoned or mutate into something
| unrecognizable.
|
| The frequency and switching cost of services falling is high
| enough that now I see it is rational to only work with tools
| that have a clear part if the product ceases to exist.
|
| Even when new things come out (eg chatGPT), I'm immediately
| looking for a more long-lasting alternative.
| kristopolous wrote:
| duolingo? Maybe airbnb?
|
| That's all I've got.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > Principled people have always been able to make principled
| software. The difference is that now you need far less money and
| far fewer employees to reach far more customers.
|
| Absolutely. The idea that you need even tens of engineers to make
| a great product is ridiculous. Scope the product well and know
| what you're building. Hire generalists and use boring tech.
| Profit.
| mperham wrote:
| Can confirm.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| + this
|
| It was super painful transition for Graphistry. Certainly as a
| founder responsible for payroll and having only so many hours in
| a day. Likewise, as business where people in serious gov,
| enterprise, etc teams are making mission bets on our team, it is
| both enabling & stress-relieving to know that we can prioritize
| listening to our customers more than what we think the next
| funding round's VCs need to hear. It's been night & day launching
| our new genAI analytics tool louie.ai: this time around, we've
| gotten to work entirely based on customer design partner feedback
| & revenue, vs next round VC funding pressure. Still major
| pressure given who our customers are etc, but of the positive
| kind.
|
| We haven't taken further fundraising off the table. Importantly,
| this time around, if/when we do an A, it can now be very much on
| our terms, and in a way we feel won't unnecessarily jeapordize
| our customers & team.
|
| As always, context matters. If a company is making $500K in month
| 3 because the founder is selling back to his old F500 buddies, or
| it's an n-th time serial founder who VCs line up to burn $100M on
| no questions asked, or it's yet another Cisco spin-out-and-in,
| sure. Likewise, we've been figuring out sustainable growth, and
| that changes a lot. But most pre/seed/A software startup
| situations nowadays aren't these.
| muhammadusman wrote:
| I started paying for Obsidian last month, it was on my annual
| cancel vs subscribe list [1], I've been happy using Obsidian for
| almost a year now and paying for Sync was a nice way to enhance
| my usage and support the team.
|
| 1: https://blog.usmanity.com/cancel-vs-subscribe-2024/
| julienreszka wrote:
| Any idea why it's not open source tho?
| mckn1ght wrote:
| Really resonates with me, but it's also not the whole story. The
| first company Steph cofounded was kickstarted. You have to have a
| vc/crowd/self funded runway just to be able to attempt to get the
| critical mass for 100% user supported software. It can take years
| to build the product and customer base. Everyone has to eat. Not
| everyone can do it nights and weekends while they have other
| income, or hit the career jackpot and save it all up front.
| Congrats to them though for living the dream!
| kepano wrote:
| I have explored just about every way to build and fund a
| company, including the VC route. The 100% user-supported path
| is by far the most fun (to me).
| dtkav wrote:
| You and the Obsidian team been a huge inspiration to me. I
| love how the principles of File-over-app, user-funded, and
| private-first can align your incentives not just with the
| user, but with what feels soul nourishing to actually build.
|
| It seems like there's an art to targeting a niche market
| segment that VC funded companies won't be able to compete in
| because the "gold vein" isn't large enough to support the
| hypergrowth and expected returns. OTOH if you plan to keep
| your team small then you can just set up shop and stay lean.
|
| I've been building a product that integrates with Obsidian
| (hopefully ready to share soon), and it has been the
| highlight of my career to design and build software with
| these principles and to not be worried about balancing
| misaligned incentives.
|
| Thanks for building a great product -- I'm super happy to
| subscribe and support y'all. <3
| mperham wrote:
| One issue with bootstrapped startups is that after five years,
| private equity buys the company and ruins it anyways.
|
| Don't sell out to MBAs, they exist to enshittify businesses.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| > If you have principles and enough patience
|
| This is what I've been struggling with for the past few years but
| recently, have come to the conclusion that success WILL come, I
| just gotta be patient and keep making regular progress. Move slow
| and create things.
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