Why I started paying for Obsidian
Background
I've been an avid Obsidian user since I started my undergraduate degree about 3+ years ago. Before that, I was using a mix of Notion with Samsung Notes on my tablet.
The tablet with its stylus was very useful, as I had calculus, chemistry, and biology classes then, and having a never-ending notebook with additional features made it worth mainly using that as my note-taking system.
For subjects that didn't require too much physical handwriting, I would use Notion. I loved the idea of Notion, its aesthetic, its ethos, and how you could basically build whatever you wanted. I was also in the “study-tube” era during college, where there were many high-school and university students on YouTube teaching and showing their Notion builds/systems, and I had fun watching them.
Likewise, I don't have much criticism against Notion, aside from its slow speeds and increasingly frequent stutters, which I've heard from a close friend are still a recurring issue on lower-end computers 1. It was plenty flexible for my use case (I use a folder-first PARA system instead of the folder-less approach many Obsidian users prefer), and I did enjoy the design appeals of the product.
But alas, my then computer and tablet could not take it, and it was taking up more and more time to sync up and pull my notes from their cloud as my archive grew larger. I decided to move and landed on Obsidian.
Switching to Obsidian
Although my eyes have wandered during the early days of my relationship with Obsidian towards other apps that offered better cross-device functionalities (i.e.,, UpNote, Evernote, AmpleNote) and even more recently, a more all-in-one system like Craft Docs, I ended up deciding that Obsidian would be the best option.
I'll probably write a longer post on why it fits my use cases and even perhaps my failed move to Craft, but Obsidian's strength really is about how flexible and fast it is. It's also incredibly simple to use once you have the hang of its basic functionalities.
During the moments I've used Obsidian across my tablet and computer, I was using Syncthing (before it was discontinued on Android), and then after that, settled with Dropbox paired with Dropsync. It was not an ideal situation, as there were some conflicts here and there, but overall it was usable.
Until I realized that my laptop was just a better device to take to classes. I was already having to use the university's LMS, which had poor support for mobile devices in the first place, so I opted to just carry one device and used my tablet mainly for revision purposes.
And hence I was able to use Obsidian throughout the entirety of my degree, and I never had many issues with it. When I started working, I was still capable of using the same vault with no problems and frequently switched from notes for work to notes for lectures, and Obsidian handled it like a champ.
Paying for Obsidian Sync
Now…then, why the title?
It's honestly as simple as:
- I want to support the application. Obsidian has a small team, and its CEO, Stephen Ango, has expressed that they would not be taking VC-funding anytime soon. I think good-quality apps (especially ones with such a strong community and good leadership) deserve support!
Eventually all VCware must exit. That means being acquired or going public to pay back investors. It's expected that 9 out 10 startups will fail. That's just part of the math in a VC portfolio. The startups that have big exits pay for the ones that fail. Venture capital creates the unavoidable pressure to go big or go broke.
I've been using it for years at this point, and I think I owe it to them just a little to give back however I can. All the features are essentially free to anyone when used locally, with practically unlimited customizability with community plugins.
As I now have a more stable flow of income, this is a luxury I can afford. It helps me with my job, it helps me with my hobbies such as this one, and it helps me keep everything organized. I feel happy having it.
From a more practical standpoint, a few months ago I purchased a MacBook after several instances of my Windows laptop suffering the blue screen issue in the middle of my graded assignments for university. It gave me too many anxious thoughts, and it was getting closer and closer to my thesis season; hence, I now have a MacBook and a half-functioning Windows machine, in addition to my Android phone. It's very nice to have them all sync to one another without conflict issues. Furthermore, it's incredibly fast and does not consume any additional background processes that would've come with using Syncthing/Dropbox or any other alternative workarounds.
Although I understand that there are barriers that stop people from being able to pay for these software tools, especially when one's a student or money is just tight, things like these are definitely luxuries. It does help to keep tools like these afloat.
If everyone is using them for free, it is unrealistic that they would survive as a business.
I'm satisfied with the purchase, and I hope to see Obsidian last a long time.
In a very similar way, Obsidian's Manifesto, really does remind me of BearBlog's.
Another platform that I have no hesitation giving my full monetary and emotional support at all!
Said friend has since moved on to Obsidian as well.↩