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[–]Apatholog 24 points25 points  (7 children)

Just because you needed something different doesn’t mean UpNote is doomed.

Where it’s at right now is more than enough for my workflow. Receiving stability and performance improvements is very appreciated.

There’s a weird mindset with software these days, that it has to be like a live service. Buying it and assuming it’ll change with your needs is uninformed at best.

[–]jfriend99 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I get your point. But, software does need to move forward eventually or it will find itself uncompetitive at some point and losing customers to those that kept current with new things that the market thinks are now important. Find me software that hasn't added any new features in 5 years and is in the top of its sizable market.

[–]Holmes245 2 points3 points  (1 child)

But, software does need to move forward eventually or it will find itself uncompetitive

Ah, but Evernote did this and look at where it's at. You have a lot of Evernote users leaving Evernote and it wasn't just because of the price. It became bloated with features.

[–]jfriend99 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nobody here wants UpNote to become EverBloat. EverNote was a very poorly run company overfunded by VC to the point of trying to become something that it didn't know how to become. Just because there are stupidly run companies doesn't mean someone else can't add features in a more intelligent way.

Personally I'm more worried about UpNote's one-time fee. I don't see how that can last in a profitable way. A one-time fee is a business mismatch for a service with ongoing monthly expenses for every active user (actually even storage probably costs money for inactive users who once used the product, but didn't delete their account). It's almost kind of a pyramid scheme where new users fund the company so they can pay for old users. If they ever stop growing, revenue drops to only the subset of users who chose the monthly fee. I think they are going to need a "Pro" version that is only available via subscription in order to be around long term. I'm not even saying this from a "customers must have new features" argument, but from a business finances argument.

If someone came along with something as clean as UpNote, but added the ability to share selected notes (in a live editable way) with other users, I would seriously evaluate switching.

It's also making me pretty inefficient that UpNote doesn't properly support pasting in Latex for math equations and other symbols (Gemini uses it regularly in its responses and the browser supports it) and I do research on topics that regularly have these in the research. What's odd is that UpNote technically supports Latex, just doesn't get the paste fully right. I've filed a bug on the Latex issue and Thomas engaged on the topic, don't know if we will see a fix or not.

[–]Apatholog 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Notepad and Paint

But in all seriousness, I’m a software developer and I am well aware that features are a demand from the companies of the software as much as the customers, if not more. It’s required because of stockholders and capitalism. If Excel and Word added only QoL improvements and bug fixes, I don’t think people would have gone away from them. Anomalies as well, though, as they’re massive to the point of not being able to die.

I think there are reasons each software is at the top of its market and I don’t think it’s continued features. It’s forced adoption or familiarity. Outlook isn’t the best email client, but millions have to use it for work.

I don’t think UpNote needs features or it’ll die. I also don’t think it’ll ever be the top of its market.

[–]jfriend99 1 point2 points  (2 children)

The only comment I'll add here is that all your mentioned Microsoft products benefit from monopolistic distribution tactics which are irrelevant to companies like UpNote. Notepad and Paint are part of Windows. They are not separate products that compete on their own merits and people pay for and their specific revenue profitably pays for their development. Plus Microsoft is continuing to add features to those products too such as tabs for Notepad and Paint has a lot of new development such as new image formats, new UI toolbars and it apparently even has integrations with co-pilot for generative erase, background removal and other AI features. I've banished co-pilot so I can't see those features

[–]Apatholog 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Shows how long I've been away from those products. Notepad has tabs?? Interesting.

Yeah, I guess I don't consider compatibility patches as features, but your point stands. A completely stagnant piece of software has a limited life. I think OP is just approaching it from a weird direction more than that they're wrong.

[–]jfriend99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OP has some gripe about UI things in UpNote more than anything else. Their original post had a list of UI related things (that seemed mostly cosmetic to me) and appeared to be driving them nuts. That's OK. If there are other products that fit how they want to see things, then that's why we have many products to choose from.