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Thoughts on Omnivore shutting down (1/3) Many people enjoyed Omnivore because it was free, but being free was part of its demise. As an independent app maker, you must have a way to generate revenue or your product will die. As a user you must demand a way to pay makers for the products you love. See my essay: "Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash" 12 comments
A subset of people will find refuge in Omnivore's open source code, but the vast majority of users are not technical enough to compile/host/run a service like this. In the end I keep coming back to the ephemerality of software. We have to appreciate that apps like Omnivore are being attempted. The apps that become self-sustaining will last longer than those that don't, but none will last forever. (3/3) @heleenkuiper @kepano for personal use, yes. there are (extremely well-priced, worth it!) annual license fees for professional use  @heleenkuiper @kepano well yeah... The sync and licenses are the business model. Obsidian is profitable and is able to hire more people because they have real money Omnivore had no business model @heleenkuiper @kepano I just told you and Kepano also told you. The users buy services from them. They buy sync/publich services. I don't know what more to tell you.... "Above all, Obsidian is 100% user-supported. There are no investors pushing us to compromise on these values." @heleenkuiper Obsidian has multiple revenue streams (commercial, Sync, Publish) whereas Omnivore only accepted donations  @kepano I try my very best to pay for all software that I use. And when companies don't allow me to, I know my principles don't align with theirs. This happened with Arc https://cdevroe.com/2023/08/30/dear-arc/ And now we see they are abandoning what was a very good app. @kepano I think there is also an issue of it being an online servise. You can make an offline product for free out of love, and then, when you lose interest or run out of resources you can just abandon it, maybe open-source it, and it still going to work. But with online thing you need to pay for the servers and provide constant support, which is hard to do endlessly on pure enthusiasm... That said, I really hoped they will add some way of monetisation, instead of shutting the app. They said they were planning to do this when people asked about their business model. But, I guess, they decided it wasn't worth it. @kepano 2 weeks is too short, there should be some minimum time frame for cases like this. 1-3 months. |
Gregory's Server
I didn't personally use Omnivore, but it seems like many Obsidian users loved it. Now the app is being shut down with only a couple of weeks to export your data.
While this is abrupt, it isn't surprising. When a startup runs out of resources, the end is always more sudden than you expect. The dream of making it work persists until the very last moment. (2/3)