I’ve been a Notion user for about two years now but I’m getting frustrated with how bloated it’s become. Sure, all the new features look impressive but honestly I just need basic note-taking functionality. Plus there are these annoying glitches that drive me crazy. Like when I select text and press delete, nothing happens.
I’m really hesitant to jump to another service because I absolutely cannot deal with migrating my notes again. Small companies make me nervous because you never know when they might shut down or get bought out. Remember what happened with Evernote?
Google Keep seemed promising at first since Google probably won’t kill it at this point. But then I started worrying about privacy issues with Google having access to everything.
I write pretty personal stuff in my notes so the thought of random people potentially seeing them makes me uncomfortable.
For those of you who worry about companies feeding your notes into AI training models, what exactly are you afraid will happen? I’m trying to figure out if this should be a bigger concern for me.
I also really want something that saves files in plain text or HTML format. I want to know that I can still open and read my notes decades from now without needing special software.
Joplin has worked well for me after dealing with similar frustrations. It’s open source which addresses your concern about small companies disappearing, and you can sync through your own cloud storage or keep everything local. The markdown format means your notes will be readable forever without proprietary software. Regarding AI training concerns, companies like OpenAI have actually used user data from various platforms to train their models, so your personal thoughts and private information could theoretically end up in their training datasets. That’s why I switched to local storage - nobody else has access to scan through my notes for any purpose.
obsidian might b worth checking out - its all local files stored as markdown so no privacy worries there. been using it for months now and love that i actually own my data instead of trusting some company not to mess with it later
Have you considered Standard Notes? I switched from Notion about eight months ago for similar reasons and haven’t looked back. It’s been around since 2016 so they’ve proven some staying power, plus they’re completely transparent about their business model which gives me more confidence than venture-funded startups that burn through cash. The free version handles basic note-taking perfectly and they use end-to-end encryption so even their own servers can’t read your content. Everything exports to plain text which solves your future-proofing concern. The interface is refreshingly simple compared to Notion’s feature creep - sometimes you just want to write notes without dealing with databases and templates you’ll never use.