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reMarkable Connect subscription plans

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Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#11

Post by AstroDogCatcher »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #7
AstroDogCatcher wrote: post #2

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now. Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

No subscription is an option. I'm not sure how much of your own sync you could setup, but the subscription isn't forced upon you.

You can do your own sync in a hacky manner - but if I were going down that route, I'd just choose one of the more open (and cheaper) alternative devices.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#12

Post by slightwinder »

AstroDogCatcher wrote: post #2

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now. Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

My impression is that the reMarkable has pretty poor hardware, and a rather exotic software (for a tablet). Which means they are limited in what they can do on the device, and the support they can harvest from community. Which also means, outsourcing stuff to the cloud is a natural effect, which means demanding money for running the cloud is also natural.

For similar reasons the device is expensive and still has a rather poor situation because it's quite special, with a relative small market. Which means it's trapped in a situation where it needs more supporting customers to deliver a good device, but to gain more customers it needs to deliver a good experience.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#13

Post by AstroDogCatcher »

jmacd wrote: post #8

I have a ReMarkable 1 and II (which I bought for my partner as a gift). They are nice e-readers that are well built. They really do fail on their key promise as a paper replacement however. The one saving grace of having spent so much money on the device is the "Send to ReMarkable" extension in my browser. I received the email a few days ago telling my that those cloud based services, which were advertised as part of…

I'm in the same boat. I use the rM extensively for meeting notes, but I have never been able to give up on having a paper notebook as well. The problem is mostly the ease of page-flicking; skipping forward and backward on an e-ink device is an O(N) operation, while in a physical book it is O(1). The same problem has basically forced me towards using a Kindle only for fiction where the content is linear - for technical material, I still buy physical books.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#14

Post by AstroDogCatcher »

slightwinder wrote: post #12
AstroDogCatcher wrote: post #2

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now. Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

My impression is that the reMarkable has pretty poor hardware, and a rather exotic software (for a tablet). Which means they are limited in what they can do on the device, and the support they can harvest from community. Which also means, outsourcing stuff to the cloud is a natural effect, which means demanding money for running the cloud is also natural. For similar reasons the device is expensive and still has a ra…

I actually think the hardware (at least in gen2) is pretty good, and the software has progressed from "OK but a bit rough" to also being pretty good. I can accept the high device price given what a niche market they have, but the subscription prices are a massive over-reach relative to the value delivered. Charging business customers (eg for more flexible isolated/shared storage accounts and other collaboration features) would have made sense, but the current model feels like they just plucked a number out of the air based on what other subscriptions cost, with no reference to the consumer value delivered.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#15

Post by JKCalhoun »

threefour wrote: post #4
AstroDogCatcher wrote: post #2

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now. Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

There's a saying that for every trend there's an anti-trend. I do wonder when we'll reach a critical mass of subscription services such that a preference against subscriptions in general becomes a trend.

Already passed that point for me. Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Cable TV, Spotify? Nope.

I pay for larger iCloud storage and I have a library card.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#16

Post by kweks »

User and avocate of the rm2 here; it completely replaced my notepad/s in and out of the office.

Worth mentioning that they have given lifetime access to existing customers, but I had been planning on giving devices to staff at the end of the year, this announcement has significantly cooled my enthusiasm.

If Remarkable staff are reading and are willing to extend the lifetime offer to existing clients for new purchases, feel free to speak up..

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#17

Post by kayodelycaon »

Sigh. I really love my reMarkable 2 and recommended it to a number of people. Moving unlimited cloud storage behind a $5/mo paywall is the end of that. Deleting anything you haven't updated in 50 days means you have no backup for those notes if your device gets dropped. (Which happened to me.)

Even if I was okay with this, it makes me worry about the long term survival of the company.

For myself, I have my own backups from installing rsync with toltec. It'll be a few years (hopefully more if the hardware lasts) before I need to find an alternative.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#18

Post by Tsiklon »

The user group on Facebook did not take the news of this new subscription well at all.

Personally I’m on the fence about it, I got my remarkable 2 last year and I’ve been very pleased with all the updates and features they’ve added to it, I’m also pleased that existing purchasers and users are grandfathered in to the new plan.

What I’m less enthusiastic about is for the potential of new features being exclusive to a higher tier plan than the grandfathered connect plan.

I’m less enthusiastic about recommending the system to new users as well because of the initial expense of the tablet and the ongoing increased costs to ownership that new users will face.

I know many creative types who would love to use this solution, but the expense of the subscription on top of the cost of the device means that it’s prohibitively expensive for them.

I wish remarkable well with this venture because it was probably a difficult choice to make, the risks of potentially closing the door on some new users must have potentially outweighed the revenue gains on new customers. It can’t have sat well with everyone at the organisation, given how they’ve been so good with new features and updates to both versions of the hardware.

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#19

Post by syshum »

slightwinder wrote: post #12
AstroDogCatcher wrote: post #2

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now. Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

My impression is that the reMarkable has pretty poor hardware, and a rather exotic software (for a tablet). Which means they are limited in what they can do on the device, and the support they can harvest from community. Which also means, outsourcing stuff to the cloud is a natural effect, which means demanding money for running the cloud is also natural. For similar reasons the device is expensive and still has a ra…

I like hardware. Love it infact.

For me the subscription service itself is not the issue, it is far far far too expensive for what they offer in it, and they have broken my trust.

The first thing I did after their announcement was disable auto-updates, I dont really use their cloud services anyway prefering to interact with the device either with SSH or a 3rd party tool (RCU), my fear now is a future update will disable SSH and the ability for people to opt-out of their cloud.

I am grandfathered in, so I get it for free, but I have no intention of using

Today if I needed to replace my device I would buy a SuperNote A5X

Re: reMarkable Connect subscription plans

#20

Post by emsy »

threefour wrote: post #4
AstroDogCatcher wrote: post #2

This has soured me on reMarkable, and probably means that I won't buy the gen3 device when they get to it - despite me having been a big advocate for them until now. Not everything needs to be a subscription. I don't care about your cloud storage (in fact, I would prefer to just use my own), and the other "features" should be table stakes for something which costs so much to buy in the first place.

There's a saying that for every trend there's an anti-trend. I do wonder when we'll reach a critical mass of subscription services such that a preference against subscriptions in general becomes a trend.

I don’t care about subscriptions in general and why should I? Netflix adds new content and my VPS is also a subscription, it just doesn’t call itself that. They have running costs and I’m not dependent on them. But there are services where the sole intention of the subscription is to generate a steady cash flow (almost all software, things like ink catridge subscriptions), subscriptions where the platform prohibits alternatives (iCloud) and bait and switch offers like the remarkable. These should be better regulated.
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