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Notion for everyone

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Re: Notion for everyone

#61

Post by PragmaticPulp »

pcx wrote: post #49

I love using Notion, but I think the general discussion about it does not talk enough about how it's flexibility is also a problem many times. 1. Flexibility of blocks is a cognitive overhead for most folks in my team. They would rather prefer more constrained and opinionated approaches like Trello 2. Notion is currently a jack of all trades and master of none. We have tried to use it as a wiki, project tracker, issu…

I've tried to use Notion, but my experience mirrors yours:

There's just enough flexibility to slow you down, but not enough flexibility to make it down exactly what I need without jumping through a lot of hoops.

My favorite productivity tools blend into the background. I can get down to doing the work without mental overhead of managing the tool. Notion, on the other hand, feels like I'm spending half of my energy fighting with Notion, and only half of my energy doing the work I'm trying to accomplish.

Re: Notion for everyone

#62

Post by tommoor »

_fzslm wrote: post #45
franky47 wrote: post #23

The one thing that bothers me about Notion (and Slack and other "everything in one place" tools), is the lack of encryption. I might have FAANGophobia, but whenever there is a free tier without a form of end-to-end encryption in place, it feels like a data puddle waiting to become a lake. That being said, having clear-text data would allow features like an API on publicly shared pages/blocks, to use Notion as a CMS.…

this is the only thing that stops me from using Notion, too. just downloaded it and it looks like it would change my life... except i don't own the data. right now i'm trying out Outline [1] which has an option for self hosting. [1] https://github.com/outline/outline

Thanks for the mention!

Outline also has an RPC-style API for the entire project btw, the documentation needs a little work but it's there: https://getoutline.com/developers

Re: Notion for everyone

#63

Post by iliaznk »

avolcano wrote: post #5

This is kinda weird, because I was happily giving them $4/month after running out of space in their trial plan, and now I absolutely have no reason to keep giving them money. Which, sure, I guess I'll take it. My $4/month isn't going to make or break their business and they probably barely give a shit about getting money for personal usage. Does remind me that my usage of their app doesn't align with their business m…

Got about the same feeling, but then I noticed that this free personal plan allows only 5mb of file uploads as opposed to the unlimited uploads in the paid plan, which is one of my use cases – I store quite a lot of files there as a personal software archive, and then I felt relieved.

Re: Notion for everyone

#64

Post by pcx »

Scarbutt wrote: post #58
pcx wrote: post #49

I love using Notion, but I think the general discussion about it does not talk enough about how it's flexibility is also a problem many times. 1. Flexibility of blocks is a cognitive overhead for most folks in my team. They would rather prefer more constrained and opinionated approaches like Trello 2. Notion is currently a jack of all trades and master of none. We have tried to use it as a wiki, project tracker, issu…

Sounds like the curse of Emacs.

I am a 10yr+ Emacs user, this hit too close to home than I would like! I am seeing a lot of momentum in Emacs ecosystem for last couple of years and Spacemacs rocks! So hopefully it's gonna get better :)

Re: Notion for everyone

#65

Post by brainzap »

pcx wrote: post #49

I love using Notion, but I think the general discussion about it does not talk enough about how it's flexibility is also a problem many times. 1. Flexibility of blocks is a cognitive overhead for most folks in my team. They would rather prefer more constrained and opinionated approaches like Trello 2. Notion is currently a jack of all trades and master of none. We have tried to use it as a wiki, project tracker, issu…

I miss Trello: add task, edit, save.

Re: Notion for everyone

#66

Post by tommoor »

brainzap wrote: post #65
pcx wrote: post #49

I love using Notion, but I think the general discussion about it does not talk enough about how it's flexibility is also a problem many times. 1. Flexibility of blocks is a cognitive overhead for most folks in my team. They would rather prefer more constrained and opinionated approaches like Trello 2. Notion is currently a jack of all trades and master of none. We have tried to use it as a wiki, project tracker, issu…

I miss Trello: add task, edit, save.

Trello… still exists?

Re: Notion for everyone

#67

Post by ggregoire »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #7

Anyone mind giving me a TL;DR on the value proposition/use case of Notion? I have a friend that works at a small company who is absolutely nuts about it (every single one of his tweets is about it), but I also have seen other people say it's a convoluted mess once you get above a certain size and they regret ever going down that path. Also curious if anyone has comments on how it compares to similar apps like Dropbox…

I used Evernote for years and switched to Notion like 2 years ago. I use it on a daily basis, mainly to take/read notes at work and track articles/papers I've read, but also to track movies/series/books/games I've seen/read/played (the "database" template is great for that), track gym sessions and keep a grocery check list.

While it's a good product (and now totally free), I don't really get why people are absolutely nuts about it all over Twitter. There is also like a Notion community, organizing Notion meetups and events. That's kinda beyond me. At the end of the day, it's just a note taking app.

Re: Notion for everyone

#69

Post by intopieces »

avolcano wrote: post #5

This is kinda weird, because I was happily giving them $4/month after running out of space in their trial plan, and now I absolutely have no reason to keep giving them money. Which, sure, I guess I'll take it. My $4/month isn't going to make or break their business and they probably barely give a shit about getting money for personal usage. Does remind me that my usage of their app doesn't align with their business m…

Are there any open source Notion alternatives? This is the main benefit of open source software, in my mind: no one can "take" it from you because it doesn't belong to "them" in the same way that a product does.

Re: Notion for everyone

#70

Post by vz8 »

_fzslm wrote: post #45
franky47 wrote: post #23

The one thing that bothers me about Notion (and Slack and other "everything in one place" tools), is the lack of encryption. I might have FAANGophobia, but whenever there is a free tier without a form of end-to-end encryption in place, it feels like a data puddle waiting to become a lake. That being said, having clear-text data would allow features like an API on publicly shared pages/blocks, to use Notion as a CMS.…

this is the only thing that stops me from using Notion, too. just downloaded it and it looks like it would change my life... except i don't own the data. right now i'm trying out Outline [1] which has an option for self hosting. [1] https://github.com/outline/outline

Would really appreciate your thoughts on this, if you have any initial feedback.

We're considering the self-hosted option too - that's the big draw.

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