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Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

forums.ankiweb.net

51–60 of 263 posts

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#51
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Same person as above but felt that this part had a separate purpose so I've moved it into its own comment) The ecosystem is currently such that it seems hard to enshittify it. They say they have no intention of doing that and I believe it, but their vision of a healthy and good product might involve a fair price (for rich countries at least) whereas it was always free so far Time will tell; it sounds like there's cu…

The iOS app has never been free and that's the way most people use it these days. Desktop computing is a niche.

This may be true, but as someone who picked up Anki as a desktop app back around 2009 it feels a little crazy.

I also can’t imagine making cards on a phone, given how much switching between apps/windows is involved and how poor mobile platforms are at multitasking. It’s difficult to envision it being anything but maddening.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#52
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Same person as above but felt that this part had a separate purpose so I've moved it into its own comment) The ecosystem is currently such that it seems hard to enshittify it. They say they have no intention of doing that and I believe it, but their vision of a healthy and good product might involve a fair price (for rich countries at least) whereas it was always free so far Time will tell; it sounds like there's cu…

The iOS app has never been free and that's the way most people use it these days. Desktop computing is a niche.

In America perhaps. Android is more popular in other countries, most people I know use Anki for free. The desktop app and sync are useful for editing cards and managing a large collection. Both of those are free too, but for how long?

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#53

> What We Don’t Know Yet > Governance and decision-making: How decisions are made, who has final say, and how the community is heard > Roadmap and priorities: What gets built when and how to balance competing needs > The transition itself: How to bring in more support without disrupting what already works In other words: they have no clue what to do next ( https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/ankis-growing-up/68610/2#p-1905.…

Community focused organizations like this are hard to run without governance transitions. I think Anki brings value to the world and anyone willing to take on a leadership role in keeping it going should be given trust and grace to make the best decisions they can with the knowledge they have. I wish them luck.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#54
> Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source, guided by the same principles that have guided the project from the beginning.

Already caveating with the "core" code. Even without PE and VC, it's clear that a company with 35 employees is bound to take this in a different direction than 1 guy, and not a good one. If there comes a day where those 35 employees can't be sustained anymore by revenue, and the choice is between enshittification and shutting down/firing everyone, we'll see what happens. That's the big difference - such a decision was never on the cards, or at least much less likely, when run by a single person. Now it will be.

Big conflict of interests too. AnkiHub makes money from selling paid addons. No chance any of those will ever end up in Anki now.

Also not a good look that they immediately locked the thread in their most popular community.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#55
post #6

It was a fascinating symbiotic between nerdy med students from all over the world and an obscure open source flashcard app that originally targeted language learners. I've been part of that community for many years and would have never foreseen this outcome but in hindsight it seems the best path forward for anki.

I don't think it's just for nerdy med students nowadays. Who studied for Step I without it? And How? (And Why? :)

Step 1 is pass/fail now. If I had to redo it and just pass, I don't think it would be necessary to use anki now (except maybe for something Sketchy).

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#56

> What We Don’t Know Yet > Governance and decision-making: How decisions are made, who has final say, and how the community is heard > Roadmap and priorities: What gets built when and how to balance competing needs > The transition itself: How to bring in more support without disrupting what already works In other words: they have no clue what to do next ( https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/ankis-growing-up/68610/2#p-1905.…

Knowing what they don't know puts them ahead of many organizations.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS app has never been free and that's the way most people use it these days. Desktop computing is a niche.

This may be true, but as someone who picked up Anki as a desktop app back around 2009 it feels a little crazy. I also can’t imagine making cards on a phone, given how much switching between apps/windows is involved and how poor mobile platforms are at multitasking. It’s difficult to envision it being anything but maddening.

Desktop for creating cards, mobile for reviewing them.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#58

Possible alternative to check out (not affiliated): https://mochi.cards/

I've been paying for the pro version for a while. It's templating is really powerful and easy to use. For my vocab deck, I set up a input field (e.g., word) and a bunch of derived fields (dict definition, AI-generated example, TTS audio). To add a new card, I just input the word and other fields will be automatically populated.

Technically this can be implemented in Anki as an addon. But only the desktop version supports addons and the default UI is a bit too complicated.

Re: Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

#60
post #10

On the plus side, the actually good mobile Anki client, AnkiDroid, remains out of the hands of this potentially questionable new entity. (AnkiDroid has always been run independently, which is good, considering the state of the iOS client, which has always been neglected.)

The (paid!) iOS client has always been a disappointment to me, and I've long been jealous of the open source Android one. I don't mind so much that it's paid, given how much use I get for the price, but it sucks knowing it sucks and not being able to help make it better.

Is it still 25$ price? Makes it impossible to recommend Anki to friends/students to "try spaced repetition".
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