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Notion's mid-life crisis

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Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#81

Post by jitl »

dcre wrote: post #18
staplers wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to use Notion daily. I switched to Anytype when Notion launched an AI tool that trains on your data. A bit more of a learning curve but that's an absolute no-go when a tool contains the inner workings of my brain. Plenty of comparable private options. Intellectual capital is rapidly being migrated from workers to shareholders under the guise of "AI". Imagine a world where C-suites no longer rely on or support…

Thanks for the Anytype rec. I have similarly been looking for a good alternative since they turned on AI features you can’t easily opt out of. And I’m not some anti-LLM zealot — I use them every day. I’m not even worried about them training on user data. The more immediate problem is that if you accidentally type something in the Ask AI box (which is very easy to do because it looks like search), the page you’re on a…

(I work at Notion but not on AI)

We maintain a list of data su processors here: https://www.notion.so/notion/Notion-s-List-of-Subprocessors-...

It’s not as specific as citing the actual model version in use from each vendor, though.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#82

Post by strken »

diego_sandoval wrote: post #21
epiccoleman wrote: post #11

I like Notion but I share the sense that it's not really targeted at my use case anymore. I think I could essentially move everything into Obsidian and lose almost nothing in the process. I just use it for taking notes and writing stuff down. I like how easy it is to drop an image, video, or document into a notion page, but I've only barely used features like databases which seem to be the big selling point, and none…

I started as an Obsidian user, and generally I like the fact that it's just Markdown, but markdown tables really suck, to the point that I simply ended up avoiding them at all costs, and I used OnlyOffice's Excel equivalent in parallel to Obsidian for a while. But Notion has good tables by default, so I can have both good tables (and tableviews) and normal text files in the same app. I could have tried Obsidian plugi…

I would find markdown tables easier to use if they were just CSV and some delimiters for start/header/end. Imagine being able to write

    +------------------------------+
    Product,Cost per seat,Importance
    +------------------------------+
    GSuite,$7.20,Critical
    Notion,$10,High
    "Something, ""with"", commas and double-quotes",$5,Low
    +------------------------------+

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#83

Post by jaynate »

iforgotmysocks wrote: post #70
apsurd wrote: post #55

Another anecdote added to the "I don't get notion" pile. I just don't get notion. I use Apple Notes for everything id use notion for + scratch.txt on every project folder root. (i've used notion, quip, gdocs, dropbox paper) Notion lives rent free in my mind because while im indifferent to it, people seem to LOVE it. and that's so fascinating. even this article, I upvoted it because the conversation about notion is in…

Apple Notes is underrated. There is no flashy features to distract you. Just you and your notes.

Totally agree. Use it for everything. Even replaced my handwritten notebooks since I got new iPad Pro w pencil.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#84

Post by luckman212 »

iforgotmysocks wrote: post #70
apsurd wrote: post #55

Another anecdote added to the "I don't get notion" pile. I just don't get notion. I use Apple Notes for everything id use notion for + scratch.txt on every project folder root. (i've used notion, quip, gdocs, dropbox paper) Notion lives rent free in my mind because while im indifferent to it, people seem to LOVE it. and that's so fascinating. even this article, I upvoted it because the conversation about notion is in…

Apple Notes is underrated. There is no flashy features to distract you. Just you and your notes.

I strongly disagree for these reasons:

- note data stored in a proprietary format

- no way to access note data from other apps/api

- no way to export in bulk, or in any other format than PDF (a terrible format for notes)

- iCloud sync is a mildly terrifying thing to entrust important data to

I use Apple Notes for the occasional quick grocery list but that's about it.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#85

Post by ryanschneider »

Not that I expect them to fix it at this point since it seems to be a known issue, but just in case anyone from Notion is watching please fix the macOS app’s CPU usage. On a brand new M3 MacBook Pro each tab takes about 10% of one core _non-stop_ even in the background. I have to constantly cull tabs or my machine becomes noticeably less responsive.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#86

Post by pbh101 »

luckman212 wrote: post #84
iforgotmysocks wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Notes is underrated. There is no flashy features to distract you. Just you and your notes.

I strongly disagree for these reasons: - note data stored in a proprietary format - no way to access note data from other apps/api - no way to export in bulk, or in any other format than PDF (a terrible format for notes) - iCloud sync is a mildly terrifying thing to entrust important data to I use Apple Notes for the occasional quick grocery list but that's about it.

Agree on all the above except that iCloud sync seems to have been rock-solid for years now.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#87

Post by two_cents »

iforgotmysocks wrote: post #70
apsurd wrote: post #55

Another anecdote added to the "I don't get notion" pile. I just don't get notion. I use Apple Notes for everything id use notion for + scratch.txt on every project folder root. (i've used notion, quip, gdocs, dropbox paper) Notion lives rent free in my mind because while im indifferent to it, people seem to LOVE it. and that's so fascinating. even this article, I upvoted it because the conversation about notion is in…

Apple Notes is underrated. There is no flashy features to distract you. Just you and your notes.

Apple Notes is pretty close to perfect for me - it's just missing Markdown support and backlinks. I did just figure out how to link notes together with the '>>' shortcut, which is a game-changer. I've tried a bunch of other apps, but I always come back to Notes.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#88

Post by refulgentis »

dartos wrote: post #64
threeseed wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A tool that tries to be everything to everyone Jira doesn't try to be everything. It's a project management app. It does nothing else. Notion is wiki, CRM, project management, calendar etc.

people also use jira as a support ticket system. Sprint planning system. Kanban system. I’ve seen it set up so that it can track work across kanban teams and scrum teams. Jira has deep integration with bitbucket, confluence, and GitHub. It can manage your CI pipelines as well. Jira is an anything app with a bend towards project management. Setting up jira workflows is a whole career. Source: I worked at Atlassian for…

people also use email as a support ticket system. Sprint planning system. Kanban system. I’ve seen it set up so that it can track work across kanban teams and scrum teams.

Email has deep integration with bitbucket, confluence, and GitHub.

Email can manage your CI pipelines as well.

Email is an anything app with a bend towards project management. Setting up email workflows is a whole career.

Source: I worked at Google for years and they use email as the backbone for _everything_. It all flows into email

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#89

Post by replwoacause »

btown wrote: post #17

I've often thought that, looking historically, Notion only exists because product innovation in Google Docs is decoupled from revenue growth for Google Workspace. Putting a draggable handle, at the user's election, alongside every paragraph in Docs, and adding a customizable shortcut for search across docs, would go a long way towards Docs being 90% of what Notion's value proposition was as of a few years ago. But mo…

It’s just too bad Notion AI can’t see data stored in databases, which is arguably Notions biggest value add and differentiator. So given that it can’t use that data with AI queries really limits the usefulness of it.

Re: Notion's mid-life crisis

#90

Post by apsurd »

luckman212 wrote: post #84
iforgotmysocks wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Notes is underrated. There is no flashy features to distract you. Just you and your notes.

I strongly disagree for these reasons: - note data stored in a proprietary format - no way to access note data from other apps/api - no way to export in bulk, or in any other format than PDF (a terrible format for notes) - iCloud sync is a mildly terrifying thing to entrust important data to I use Apple Notes for the occasional quick grocery list but that's about it.

Great points i also agree with. That's Apple being Apple. I'd want an open format for sure.

Thing about Apple Notes is in spite of the open ideals, if you're in the apple ecosystem, it's just easily there, on all devices, very unassuming and simply, and that's so so very valuable.

It's the long view that gets me. Over the last 20 years, if i'm in the Apple ecosystem, notes are there, synced across everything, and it's just text. and it's simple.

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