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Comment by bearjaws | Hacker News Reader

If Obsidian went VC or public it would be enshittified in 5 years or less.

There is no guarantee that they wont do any of that in two weeks and since it is closed source you are basically forced to accept the enshittification or have to switch to another product. This is the reason I haven't tried Obsidian yet. I will never use another closed source note taking app again.

For portability and durability of your data I find that "File over app"[1] is more important than open source. These are all separate vectors:

- VC vs user-supported

- Files vs databases

- Open formats vs proprietary formats

- Open source vs closed source

- Extensible vs non-extensible

- Private vs privacy-invasive

An open source app can still be VC-backed, store its data in a proprietary format, have terrible APIs, and include telemetry.

1: https://stephango.com/file-over-app

Good point, I want both. The app should use files and be open source.

It’s interesting to me that a competitive open source platform hasn’t really shown up. I know it’s all markdown, but given that it’s closed source. Open source people love to make competitive open platforms.

I am a huge proponent of open source software, but there's something to be said for building a sustainable lean business that can employ a handful of talented folks to work on continuously improving the product full time. It's hard to compete with that.

I feel similarly, but this is specifically why I chose Obsidian, I've been a big Markdown/LaTeX user for years, and I jumped from vim to StackEdit to my own Nextcloud instance, and I've happily settled on Obsidian for the past 1.5 years.

In each instance, my notes were pure Markdown files backed by a simple file system. I was able to bring my hoard of Markdown notes with me.

As a bonus, I think there are a lot of technical Obsidian users who are ready to jump ship at the slightest whiff of shit. If Obsidian were ever bought out, I'd expect the Logseq contribution graph to go hockeystick shaped.

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