Anytype: A local, privacy-first Notion alternative | Hacker News Reader

Anytype: A local, privacy-first Notion alternative

anytype.io

72 pointsweakfish41 comments

"Anytype is co-owned and co-created by the people who use it. Everyone is welcome to contribute to Anytype and everyone is rewarded."

Is Anytype a DAO?

I'm getting whiffs of blockchain/"web3" stuff between the lines here, but they seem to be actively avoiding using those words.

Can someone confirm/deny? If so, can you explain what exactly the relationship between the software and the blockchain stuff is? E.g., does the software depend on blockchains to operate, or is it just the governance structure for the developers?

This was exactly my thought. The title is 'A local, privacy first Notion alternative', but the site talks about

> can I own my piece of the new internet today?

Which screams 'digital assets'. Why do I need to 'own a piece of the new internet', why can I not just own... a set of notes on my machine?

The section which espouses the goals of the project smells similarly Web3

> We have a chance to end the nation state's monopoly on trust the same way as the printing press ended the church’s monopoly on truth.

Again like, I don't know how 'privacy-first Notion alternative' also somehow involves dismantling nation states.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love a free implementation of Notion (and by the UX of this landing page I don't doubt the developers have the resources and skills to do so), but I'd prefer that if this somehow involves digital assets and blockchains that it be front-and-center?

I don't see the source for anytype on their github org, but I do see forks of various go libraries: ipfs, libp2p (protocol layer abstracted from ipfs), badger (a kv store), mongo, goldmark (markdown parser), amplitude (product analytics... "privacy-first"?!), etc. This doesn't mean that these libraries will definitely be used but it seems to paint a clearer picture of what it will be than the marketing team's meaningless self-flagellation that is the overdone homepage.

If it quacks like a DAO and it walks like a DAO...

"I was in the recent alpha onboarding, and it was mentioned in the long-term (I don’t recall completely and I’m probably wrong) you’ll set yourself up as a DAO to, in short, manage the main public instance of Anytype (I assume like rewarding 3rd party providers, decide on new features, etc.)" [0]

(November '21)

---

(my throwaway thoughts)

Perhaps we're entering a new phase of crypto projects -- in an analoguous way to crypto-fascism [1] where the "crypto" part refers to "cryptic" i.e. hidden, it's possible that crypto(currency) projects are starting to be self-aware enough to not mention their roots, even though they are in fact blockchain-based.

You could say that this is crypto-crypto i.e. Crypto 2.0!

[0] https://community.anytype.io/t/long-term-future-decentralisa...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism

FFS can someone please advise what "DAO" is? >.>

Thank-you.

Decentralized Autonomous Organization. It's a joint-stock company but based on shitcoins.

And what is FFS? Fast forwarding service?

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=FFS

I could imagine a post-crypto-crypto state, where projects that don't die first abandon their overt blockchain framing, and then actually abandon the blockchain entirely.

E.g., ten years from now OpenSea evolves into a completely centralized system for digital assets.

Too bad about Anytype. It looks like yet another project with many good ideas ruined by blockchain ideology.

Anytype works on a peer-to-peer stack (as torrents), so there is no blockchain needed at this stage.

We are looking for sustainable way to govern our ecosystem in such a way that it does not depend on a single point of control. We are considering becoming a DAO and are researching this opportunity. No exact details are given, because we don’t have an answer yet.

As for the product itself, it does not use any blockchain

The scrolling banner screams "this is a scam" to me for some reason. And that's not even touching the weirdness of that manifesto.

But, other than that, I hope it exists. Mostly because Notion really needs self-hosted alternatives, especially with "database" items support.

Obsidian exists, but it's not FOSS.

I signed up.for early access but I'm not too hopeful. There's some blockchain-esque use of words(Making me think it will rely on Ethereum or something) and a lot of obsfuscation, it's impossible to get any clue of how it works without signing up.

As far as I can tell LogSeq is basically obsidian but open source. https://logseq.com

Is it missing a key feature that obsidian has?

Last time I checked, Loqseq didn't support free-form text / Markdown as it's an outliner (only). Now I recently heard[0] that there's a "temporary free-form text mode" now(?) – I have yet to check it out but going by what people have been saying on the internet until a few days ago[1,2,3] this doesn't seem to be solving the problem or otherwise people would have stopped complaining.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31308517

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/logseq/comments/uo45oa/moving_back_...

[2]: https://discuss.logseq.com/t/allow-non-outline-freeform-text...

[3]: https://discuss.logseq.com/t/longform-writing-in-logseq/3527...

The hierarchal view on the left side is the big one. Logseq seems to be focused on a flat model.

you might also want to check out https://dendron.so It's like notion but for developers and embeded inside of vscode (disclaimer: I'm the founder)

Hey just tried and the link is not resolving. Www works fine, seems to be an issue with the naked domain config.

You can try it yourself using the invite code - hn.

Anytype is in closed alpha with 8,000 currently testing it. You can try it yourself using the invite code - hn. Please remember it’s an early alfa which doesn’t have a proper onboarding.

The slow messy scrolling experience on the landing page is downright enraging on mobile. Seeing manifestos instead of a demo is also a red flag.

This was one of the most annoying "modern" sites I've visited in a while. I didn't know where to focus or what to read, I just left after a few seconds...

I gave up trying to understand or even care what this was after 5 seconds of fighting the scrolljacking and endless animations to actually get to the content of what this thing is.

Some very neat semantic-web looking ideas on the screens here.

The word is a huge turn off for a lot people, but that's a pity. There were a lot of problems (a very isolated ivory-tower community high among them), but there's ideas about making data common & open that are very compelling. It's not really data... just a general systems ability to have things, in information spaces.

I haven't spent much time with Notion, but the data-centric model is interesting. I was really interested a couple months ago to find out Roam uses Datomic under the hood[1][2], that this data-centric model deeply underpins it's capabilities. Amusingly, there was another open-source Notion project that sprung up right around then, AppFlowy[3].

[1] https://www.zsolt.blog/2021/01/Roam-Data-Structure-Query.htm... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29295532 (51 points, 6mo ago, 4 comments)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29385476

[3] https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/appflowy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29384341 (149 points, 6mo ago, 21 comments)

Found the download link: https://download.anytype.io/

Edit: Doesn't work at all on my Mac, it's a blank window

On Android it just asks you to sign up, and that requires an invitation code.

Had a look, binary installers; ain't nuthin' open here.

Why use this over http://logseq.com/?

It's not privacy-first until the source is open.

It can work without the internet, so it's private already. We plan to open the source code this year, so it could be audited.

> It can work without internet, so it's private already.

Don't propagate this myth, exfiltration by another cooperating app, or when network finally becomes avail to the malicious app, is perfectly possible.

In that case of course is better to wait the source code.

I've applied for an invite more than 2 years ago - still got nothing! This looks like an email honeypot!

I applied a year or two ago, and have received various invitations for onboarding - which always seem to happen at times like Saturdays 2am, or Tuesdays 8am (PST).

Not going to happen at those hours.

Never got any! I even emailed them - nothing!

You can try to download it at download.anytype.io and use the invitation code - hn

Very sad to hear that. Our invitation process doesn't work well, we are upgrading it. In the meantime, if you are still interested you can download it at download.anytype.io and use the invitation code - hn

Used any type for like 6+ months. Early alpha user.

Not a scam.

The idea is you have your local notes, and sync to their servers if you want. Or you can sync to other people and allow them to sync to you. That’s where the crypto stuff comes in.

I’ve been working on my own take on “knowledge bases” with a more personal, visual approach: Bleep [1]. I’m glad to see tools focusing less on productivity/work and more on personal growth and happiness.

Privacy is hard. I’d love to give e2e encryption off the get-go but that makes it difficult to scale up and build advanced search functionality for a small team. Would be interesting to see how Anytype or similar tools accomplish it.

[1]: https://www.bleep.is/

What an aweful first impression this page delivers. And why is the download-page linked at the blog, but not on the main-page? What is that sketchy ploy with 700 "choosen" users each month? Is this project scam? Or just incredible poor marketing?

Anyway, it seems to sell another graph-based knowledge-base-system working with markdown-files and electron, but with a more Notion-based interface. So what should this give over obsidian.md or logseq? Why marketing it now, when it still seems to be in alpha? Is there a company behind this? Talking about co-owned seems pretty sketchy. Where is the money-game here?

And what is with this upload and sync part? Upload where to?

I agree the webpage is unclear. The marketing is poor. We'll fix that. It’s not markdown based, it’s wider. If you are interested to try you can download it at download.anytype.io and use the invitation code - hn

Here is our community forum: community.anytype.io

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