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Comment by Veen | Hacker News Reader

It is quite an odd choice. It makes sense to tier based on features, but tiers based on how or when people use an app is bizarre. Am I supposed to monitor myself so I don't read a note in Obsidian while I'm doing commercial writing work?

(Also, their license page could do with some proofreading)

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The idea is that if you're creating value with Obsidian, your employer should expense that, ideally it shouldn't impact you financially. If you're working for a non-profit for example, it's all free.

> (Also, their license page could do with some proofreading)

Interested to hear more! We did a few rounds of proofreading, did you find any typos?

That doesn’t work for freelancers.

> your employer should expense that, ideally it shouldn't impact you financially.

You're really limiting your userbase (customer pool) here by expecting only enterprise users. Many people here are freelance designers, students with part-time jobs, researchers writing for-profit books, or they work for themselves. Most employers don't allow expenses for note-taking apps. I would encourage you to adopt this pricing model: https://simplemind.eu/features-pricing/

It looks cool, but I won't buy it until it's a lifetime license.

Edit: Sorry that this came out overly-negative. It's a beautiful product, congrats on launching it!

I confirm, I could be interested in such a tool for my professional activity, but I work in a large company and there’s 0 chance they’d let me expense whatever software I want. I’d be paying from my own pocket.

For what it's worth: JetBrains has a model where they sell cheaper individual licenses that people can buy from their own money (company credit cards/expenses are not allowed), and those can be used for work. And more expensive per-seat licenses for companies/organizations. Also, that also includes a perpetual license for the version at the time of purchase (and discounts for people who upgrade). I think that is overall a fair deal, and keeps the incentives for both developers and customers as aligned as is possible under such circumstances, IMHO. Yearly licensing like this doesn't make much sense for such a product, I think.

I think you are a bit too optimistic on what employers are willing to expense. A note-taking app falls far outside what most workplaces that I know of in IT would accept. In reality, I am afraid that you are excluding a large group of users.

Personally, I would pay 25$ out of my own pocket for this app, but not if I have to ensure that the notes are not related to my work, only to my personal life. And with my personal projects I use similar technologies as I do at work. Should I then not look at the notes when at work? It is just to complicated to live up to the terms of the license.

I can't even get my employer to expense texts that are necessary references for my job. They're not going to pay for my subscription for your app. I don't think your fee is unreasonable. But there are probably a lot of people with employers similar to mine.

Generally the way you extract value out of an enterprise customer is to sell it to their enterprise as an upsell from the personal plan. Check out Evernote's pricing for example:

https://evernote.com/compare-plans

You can use Evernote for personal or work uses. They have two tiers for that. Or you can get your company to buy it for you and at least one other person, with extra features that benefit the enterprise, not the user.

This seems reasonable to me.

This is really murky to me. As a professional, I keep notes as I learn things which may or may not relate to my current employment. The notes are my property and part of my knowledge base that I bring to any job. But I suppose I indirectly receive compensation for knowing things, so I need a commercial license?

Or what if I start taking notes on some random subject for fun, and eventually I write and sell a book based on them? All of a sudden I need to start paying a yearly fee?

It's not a prohibitive amount of money, but I'd be much happier with paying a one-time fee for the current version, then buying future versions if I choose to.

> I have never worked for any employer that would expanse a note taking app. Expansing anything is usually akin to pulling teeth. How am I supposed to get my employer to expanse it?

Found and fix the mistakes, thanks for the heads-up!

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