Commercial license is 50$ per year. Not even 5 bucks per month. I do not think this qualifies as "expensive", especially if you intend to use it for work related stuff
Currently the closest match to this software I have installed is Quiver. Let’s compare costs over a period of 5 years:
Quiver: $9.99 Obsidian: $250.00
That may not be a lot of money to you personally, but it fits my mental model of “expensive” pretty well.
50/y is definitely a think about it and review yearly when budgeting type of expense as a personal expense, because all those recurring expenses add up! But as a business expense, if a $100k/y dev asks for a $50 tool I think their boss will say "why you waste my time asking, just get it and we'll pay for it".
90% of my notes are work related, so I don't really generate enough "hobby" notes to stress the tool and see if I want to use it. I'm not going to drop $50 to try and it and see if I like it. I'm also not going to violate their license to see if I like it.
I wish there were a trial for the commercial version. 14 or 30 days would be really useful as an evaluation period. Without being able to try it before I buy, though, it ends up being a pass from me even though $50 isn't _that_ expensive.
Moreover, are you suggesting that people should feel guilty for using free software?
Of those 2286 packages on your PC, how many of them are written by individual software engineers who are trying to make a living by writing software? And how many of them contribute to your overall wellbeing? I'm guessing that 99% of those packages are used by programs that you yourself don't use, that just come packaged with your OS or some other product. The other 1%, yes, I think you should think about paying for.
We live in a world where a certain kind of extractive personality--Zuckerberg, Gates, Ellison--makes billions from their software, because they are willing to be an asshole-to-the-hilt with their anti-competitive, unethical, and often downright illegal behavior. The 'nice guys' who write and maintain your compiler (if gcc) or editor (if vim or emacs) or scripting language (virtually all of them) and any number of other tools that we use daily, will struggle to pay their hospital bills in retirement. And yet people balk at $4/mo for software that they might use for years. And even if they only used it for 1 month, that $4 is inconsequential compared to the other factors (like learning curve, time investment, etc).
I do think people should be spending some money on their software tools each year. Maybe 1% of their income? That's around $100/mo, which seems like an awful lot, but only in comparison to the current price they're paying of $0. But think of how much better your tools would be, if the developer who makes them could earn a living wage from them, without having to embrace the capitalistic ideals that make us hate computers and software in the firstplace.
I really dislike this cup of coffee that is commonplace. Buying coffee from Starbucks is really expensive! Coffee costs about 30c to make yourself. Some people buy coffee every day - over a year that can up to a month's rent in a world-class city.
Personally I have paid for a lot of software over the years. I think 95% of the time I have ended up getting almost no value out of those purchases, especially with iOS apps and PC games I never play. I wish I had not been so frivolous with those $4 coffee-cup Steam purcahses and instead spent all that money donating to open source projects which I actually do use every day. In the future I will be trying to do so.
Yes. I've built multiple pieces of free software, including open source drivers, data packages, libraries and even the odd game mod. Those projects have been used by individuals, corporations and other projects, both opensource and closed.
And no, I'm not entitled to free software, but I am entitled to where I spend my time, money and support. I do financially support open source projects that I use (and keep a spreadsheet in Notion to track that on a yearly basis). I also believe that if I'm going to integrate software into my day-to-day and depend on that software, it must be open source or have an open source available alternative (ala Android).
Open source isn't about making (or saving) a dollar. It's about software being more than just a means to profit.
My problem with Quiver wasn't just no updates, its a good tool how it is, but that plus no web/android/windows. Just figured it was time to finally hop of that sinking ship.
I.. wish someone had told me this 2 years ago when I started using quiver and it was already dead, before I put hundreds of notes in it that are now stuck in .qlite or .. pdf i think?
The product is applicable to anyone who needs a knowledge base so it’s $50/employee and that adds up quickly.
While the developer is free to charge whatever they like, I don’t like the trend of these products priced based on people thinking $50 isn’t that much and that spiraling into what should be a one time fee to every piece of software being $50/year forever.
This reminds me of the 4 hour workweek where there’s a plan to create recurring streams of revenue for little to no work.
I think the amount of time put into this product doesn’t warrant that price. Even though I think it’s a really neat product.
Imagine if the author of grep charged $5/month for the utility.
In other words, a year's worth of this (which is based off the idea that you would actually be using it. If you plan to use something you don't just stop using it after a month), is an entire month's worth of rent that you could pay instead.
Or maybe a different perspective, a month's worth of this is the same price as a month's worth of groceries.
fake edit: yes, they reviewed their pricing since I read it. the "sync" tier used to be at the 50$ mark.