And I like to experiment with things I want to build, I’ve liked the outcome and thought I could share it with the community since I’ve wanted to build it for couple of years and mentioned it on forum.
I didn’t mean that there is no progress in this regard, I just think that adding and adding things on top doesn’t do the app a favour and it potentially creates the need to fix more and more in between.
I know how it is with legacy code, when things expand and you have to deal with the past everytime.
Not sure how viable it is to rewrite the frontend from scratch now with the new properties and types principles in place. perhaps one person could do maintenance of the current one and a new team (I have no clue about your finances and I’m sorry if this is totally laughable what I suggest…) could create a new application that is designed UI and UX wise first and then modular enough to prevent the situation in the future you are in now.
It’s not possible I think in some viable deadlines, I’ve had this idea by myself and wanted to have do it exactly the same way with more modular or more correctly modular to say, but I understand that it’s absolutely new logic that would definitely have it’s own problems and bugs and would not solve any problems that exist in the areas that are controlled by middleware for example.
Basically there is no legacy code at the moment, all code is considered intact and maintained and all unused code is being removed on a regular basis.
In a way, there is now. With API, it won’t be really that hard to make a proper export of the data.
The tricky part, is deciding which “Markdown Standard” to export to.
I don’t see the need for now, since, I believe that “quitting” wasn’t what @anton was talking about, but if it is, I guess a few days of api development should be all it is needed. (probably less, since there are already some community/unofficial api clients)
I strongly agree with your point, especially that the continuous development of AI technology will heighten awareness of data privacy.
AI amplifies the value of data, and both commercial companies and governments will become increasingly hungry for it!
This will inevitably lead to more people becoming aware of data privacy—starting with institutions, followed by professionals, and finally the general public.
Let me share something a bit scary:
When I casually say to a friend in real life, “I feel like having hot pot tonight,” and then open an app, I immediately see recommendations for hot pot restaurants.
AI will only intensify such phenomena!
As someone who observes discussions around this for more than 20 years I can safely say that the general public just doesn’t care. Sorry. It’s just like that.
Exactly this! We more tech savy people want to believe the general public will be more aware of privacy risks, the reality is they don’t. Because it is either to complicated or inconvinient!
How many talks have you heared about quiting facebook, instagram or whatsapp and how many actually have?
Want a more recent example of how people don’t care?
Take a look at the Switch 2! A device you don’t own anymore, but you licence it to use! Nintendo can brick your device anytime they want if you don’t use it the correct way! To me, I can’t see anyone accepting that however, it sold out almost instantly…
So in 5 years google will still be strong, facebook will still be used. Meta will still be on of the largest companies and more and more things will have some form of AI (like the whole everything must become “smart” a few years ago).
consoles have been like this since the xbox 360 I believe
this. I always have been “that guy” who doesn’t use What’s App. people roll their eyes when I calmly present my arguments. I just stopped and installed that meta crap also 2-3 years ago. I gave up. my inner circle is on Signal but that’s about it.
The vision for this product should have been:
“Start with a basic editor like Write/Wordpad (of Windows world) supporting conventional rich-text editing, then move to a little more advanced features like adequate import/export/copy/paste, then on to robust search, and such foundational features, and only later move to advanced features like strong typing, etc.
At any particular instant, try to achieve one feature and one feature only and do it extremely well.”
We got a taste for ‘strong typing’ and immediately got hooked by the potential benefits, but foundational features are severely deficient to the point of being crippling.
I really did want to say two more things two @anton’s post …
It would be really interesting what your “if I could do it again” opinion is. Sharing is caring.
Initially I did not want to comment this – but I changed my mind.
- For once, it sounds really petulant. People do praise where praise is due. Yet you released something into the world which people want to use seriously, so they will also comment on the flaws, of which there are some. (Not judging here, it’s just a statement). The “insulted founder” is understandable since you probably are (rightfully!) very proud of everything here. It’s still not adequate, or in any way justified. You released it, you want payment, you need to live with the feedback, which is in no way “only negative”.
- But, also, if you don’t realize people have strong opinions because they care, you are missing a critical point. Again: A lot of the critical points adressed are ultimatively not about the software quality, but about communication and the absolute lack of transparency. That makes people feel unsafe, because no one knows “what the fuck is going on”, so everyone needs to re-calibrate at every new release.
And since I read this: I think that this would be immensely useful right now, including maybe some re-thinking of the development process transparency.
I would say you have been right, and I want to think this will change with all that what is going on right now. We did not ever have that level of surveillance possibilities, and this article here is a crass example of how privacy affects normal people.
@anton I’m actually looking forward to this happening, because Anytype needs a complete rebirth — not just a few bug fixes.
Right now, the user base for Anytype isn’t very large, so it’s also a good time for a fresh start!
On top of that, after years of development and refinement, I believe the Anytype team now has a much clearer vision of the kind of product they truly want to build. I fully support starting over!
Absolutely do not agree, just to be sure. The “let’s rewrite everything” impulse is really tempting sometimes (speaking as a dev myself), yet ultimatively almost never the right thing. And Anytype is nowhere near “completely broken”, quite the opposite. Note: “(Still) Buggy” is a completely different thing.
(Does that qualify at least as a little “praise”, @anton ? 
)
I’m one of the people who is using Anytype every day, and I’m not suffering, I’m enjoying it.
I think that people (including me) tend to forget that Anytype is still developed actively and is not a finished product and that you are a very small team. By the looks of it on Github, @Razor is developing the desktop app almost singlehandedly. Kudos!
Although I admit that the editor bugs and shortcomings are somtimes bugging me, I think it’s not fair to expect the same software quality from you as from a big company such a Notion.
I agree with some of the criticism concerning the communication, though. I think you could do a better job announcing what you are working on, what bugs you fixed and what your next priorities are. This would probably go a long way for building confidence.
Like others, I’m a bit shocked to read your thoughts about restarting from scratch. I hope you don’t do it out of frustration about the loud criticism and that you listen to the silent, content, and paying customers before making such a big decision.
I think we will more end up like in Idiocracy 
Bro gimme some peace I can’t switch software like clothes everyday. Ive tried standardnotes but markdown is locked behind a paywall and yes even on selfhosting. Anytype gives me everything for free which is crazy.
The ideal scenario is that the general public cares about data privacy.
But even if only institutions and professionals care about it, the market is still absolutely massive.
I disagree. If something works well, people will use it - and they already do - regardless of what happens to their data.
If the interest is strong enough, the concerns will fade into the background.
AI will be used for literally everything. At the moment, it is still possible to use AI models locally for subtasks (e.g. image enlargement), but for more complex tasks this is no longer possible, and of course we will all reveal our innermost selves with our online requests to AI. And we are already doing so. Or are you never using a translation service? When the results satisfy us, we use the tool.
SN is also essentially dead by now. development is stale for about 2 years. I have a 5 year plan and one account (you can share the quota with pro) has serious issues with syncing for months.
I think Proton will probably merge it into Proton Docs tbh. That’s why the development has increasingly slowed down.
I believe that in our search for the ideal tool, we basically long for functional richness, security, reliability and continuity.
I think this combination is a very high demand. And it will probably never be fulfilled.
Anton’s statement in this thread has painfully reminded us that good intentions alone do not offer any security in terms of continuity.
In my dreams, or if I had world domination, I would combine Anytype with Notion and Lark. In that order.