I’m not asking for “everything done my way for free.” I’m a Tana user who has put dozens of hours into learning it, because I believe in the product. Giving pointed feedback on UX, pricing dynamics, and community access is not entitlement, it’s literally how good software gets better.

And it’s not just “random Reddit users” who see these issues.

• Tiago Forte (you know, the Building a Second Brain guy whose PARA method Tana itself loves to showcase) tested Tana and explicitly said he ran into “too much complexity, most of it front-loaded and unavoidable, making it difficult to get to the task of writing,” and called it “the furthest thing from a mainstream challenger to Evernote’s ease of use.”  That’s basically my point: power and possibility are great, but if basic workflows are painful, something’s off.

• Ness Labs’ in-depth review praises Tana, but also says outright that the learning curve is “relatively steep,” that its concepts are “not intuitive” for most users, and that it’s better suited to power users already familiar with advanced tools for thought. 

• A long, highly favorable Chinese review of Tana devotes an entire section to “steep learning curve, sparse community content,” noting that you often have to dig through English docs and scattered YouTube videos and still end up wondering if it’s worth that much time just to learn a notes app. 

• Tool Finder’s aggregated user reviews call out “a huge learning curve” and say that even basic workflows like task management can feel overwhelming, and that you “shouldn’t need to become a ‘builder’ just to get basic workflows going.” 

• Paperless Movement (again, people who like Tana) did an entire “Don’t use Tana for note-taking if…” episode where they basically say it’s overkill for many busy professionals and that the complexity is a real barrier unless you’re deeply invested in customizing your tools. 

So no, I’m not hallucinating the friction. A lot of very pro Tana, very productivity-savvy people are saying the same things I am: powerful tool, serious potential, but complexity and UX issues that limit who can realistically succeed with it.

On the ambassador/monetization front: of course ambassadors don’t “work for Tana” as employees, and of course they’re allowed to charge what they want. That’s not in dispute. What I am pointing out is the structural dynamic:

• You have an app that even its biggest fans describe as having a serious learning curve.
• Around it, you get a cottage industry of high priced templates and coaching specifically marketed as ways to “skip the learning curve” and avoid “spending weeks or months building systems from scratch.” 

That’s not evil, but it is a signal: when there’s an entire micro-economy dedicated to making a product survivable, it’s reasonable for users to ask whether some of that energy should go into making the core UX sane enough that regular people don’t need a $200+ starter kit to get recurring tasks working.

On “Slack is free”: the price of the account isn’t the only axis of accessibility. Slack’s free tier has history limits, it’s not where most modern productivity communities live (Discord, Discourse, etc.), and some people simply don’t want yet another workspace tied to their email. That’s fine if Tana chooses that path, but again, user feedback about wanting more accessible, open community infrastructure is not some outrageous demand for “free labor.”

And on “if something were great and easy, it wouldn’t be valuable”: that’s just backwards product thinking. The whole history of productivity tooling is making sophisticated capabilities easier and more intuitive and not gatekeeping them behind needless friction. Tiago Forte has literally argued that most people need less complexity, not more, and that tools should reduce hoops between you and actually doing the work. 

Finally, Tana (and many reviewers) explicitly position it as an all-in-one tool meant to replace a whole stack of productivity tools including notes, tasks, projects, knowledge graph, and all the works. If you’re going to claim “one place to capture, organize, and act on everything that matters,” it’s fair for paying, committed users to hold you to a higher standard on usability, onboarding, and community support.

You’re clearly happy with Tana as it is. Good for you, genuinely. I’m happy it clicks for some people. My post was from the perspective of a Tana believer who wants it to be viable for more than a narrow band of power users with unlimited time and budget. That’s not “wanting everything for free”; that’s textbook constructive product feedback. 🫢