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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

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.

threefour 5y ago
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.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  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.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    The library card is more about making use of an existing subscription since they cost $100-200/year per family in taxes or increased rental costs. :) (I’m a big fan of the library.)
- emsy 5y ago
  I don’t care about subscriptions in general and why should I? Netflix adds new content and my VPS is also a subscription, it just doesn’t call itself that. They have running costs and I’m not dependent on them. But there are services where the sole intention of the subscription is to generate a steady cash flow (almost all software, things like ink catridge subscriptions), subscriptions where the platform prohibits alternatives (iCloud) and bait and switch offers like the remarkable. These should be better regulated.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    In general, I don't mind subscriptions for the streaming services (so long as they're easy to cancel). I get a few, keep my eye on how much I'm using them, and cancel any that aren't giving me value. I can always get back in if I want to some day. My philosophy is that there's pretty much no content I can't live without and the amount I save from canceling my cable TV pays for the other subs and more. Software subscriptions I'm much more leery of. I do get Lightroom/Photoshop but I use LR a lot so don't really mind.
- abhinav22 5y ago
  It’s hard because subscription services hit a sweet spot in human psychology - cheap on a monthly basis so many are happy (can you go back to paying 400$ for software unless it’s something you are 100% guaranteed to want and use for a long time), and expensive in the long run so businesses are happy (also recurring stable revenues) It’s unfortunate, but I don’t see a reversal any time soon. If I was a developer I would also want to do subscription based services, would you (put yourself in the shoes of someone running a software company)? It’s criminal how many times I have paid for Microsoft Office though.
  - AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
    I think we just need to be much more discerning about the added value from a subscription. In the case of some SaaS tools I pay for (like Todoist), I don't resent the model because I've seen steady improvements and the cost is low enough relative to the value I feel like I get. If they increased the price more than ~20%, I would probably cancel and use an alternative. Netflix is different; I actually don't watch much content and would happily live without it, but it appears to be good enough value during the times I do use it, particularly given that I'm well aware of how expensive their products are to create in the first place. The problems with reMarkable here are two-fold. Firstly, the existence of any subscription is problematic when the device has such a high up-front cost. Secondly, the prices they have chosen far exceed the value their "extra" services can offer. If they had priced it at $12 per year I would have probably grumbled but accepted it. By $24 we are around my personal tipping point where I think they are being unreasonable and I want to get out of the ecosystem. The real price of around $96 is totally absurd and makes me actively root against the company, at least enough to write these long comments and post them into the void.
branon 5y ago
Yeah at first glance this service's rollout seems terrible. You are dogged all through the checkout process with dark patterns and threats that your device will cost more while doing less if you don't subscribe... why would I buy this at all then?
zzless 5y ago
Indeed. I truly hope that PineNote takes off: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/
- MisterTea 5y ago
  I am not crazy about the PineNote design as the SoC and memory are well beyond what I would consider efficient for an eInk tablet who's primary role is to replace paper and pencil.
xboxnolifes 5y ago
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.
- AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
  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.
  - dabedee 5y ago
    Pray do tell of those more open (and cheaper) alternative devices?
    - Uberphallus 5y ago
      Not sure it's any open (Kobo devices usually are hackable), but Kobo Elipsa[0] is feature par with Remarkable 2. [0] https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-elipsa https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-elipsa
      - nottorp 5y ago
        A friend of mine uses an Onyxbook (not sure what model) extensively for note taking and he seems pretty happy with it. Software developer with a bit of math thrown in, to get an idea of what he writes on it.
    - AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
      I'm being a bit future-looking here and considering alternatives to the gen3 reMarkable, not the current hardware. Specifically, the PineNote seems like it could fill the niche for me.
    - charbuff 5y ago
      I have a BOOX Max Lumi, it has all those features, for free. Plus is a fully functioning android tablet.
slightwinder 5y ago
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.
- AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
  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.
- syshum 5y ago
  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
  - COGlory 5y ago
    disabling ssh would violate GPL licensing, right?
outworlder 5y ago
> Not everything needs to be a subscription. Everything needs to be a subscription, according to Wall Street.
macjohnmcc 5y ago
I got the e-mail to grandfather me in due to my recent purchase of the second gen device. It was a tough sell for many due to price before a subscription may doom it further.

threefour 5y ago

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.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
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.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  The library card is more about making use of an existing subscription since they cost $100-200/year per family in taxes or increased rental costs. :) (I’m a big fan of the library.)
emsy 5y ago
I don’t care about subscriptions in general and why should I? Netflix adds new content and my VPS is also a subscription, it just doesn’t call itself that. They have running costs and I’m not dependent on them. But there are services where the sole intention of the subscription is to generate a steady cash flow (almost all software, things like ink catridge subscriptions), subscriptions where the platform prohibits alternatives (iCloud) and bait and switch offers like the remarkable. These should be better regulated.
- ghaff 5y ago
  In general, I don't mind subscriptions for the streaming services (so long as they're easy to cancel). I get a few, keep my eye on how much I'm using them, and cancel any that aren't giving me value. I can always get back in if I want to some day. My philosophy is that there's pretty much no content I can't live without and the amount I save from canceling my cable TV pays for the other subs and more. Software subscriptions I'm much more leery of. I do get Lightroom/Photoshop but I use LR a lot so don't really mind.
abhinav22 5y ago
It’s hard because subscription services hit a sweet spot in human psychology - cheap on a monthly basis so many are happy (can you go back to paying 400$ for software unless it’s something you are 100% guaranteed to want and use for a long time), and expensive in the long run so businesses are happy (also recurring stable revenues) It’s unfortunate, but I don’t see a reversal any time soon. If I was a developer I would also want to do subscription based services, would you (put yourself in the shoes of someone running a software company)? It’s criminal how many times I have paid for Microsoft Office though.
- AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
  I think we just need to be much more discerning about the added value from a subscription. In the case of some SaaS tools I pay for (like Todoist), I don't resent the model because I've seen steady improvements and the cost is low enough relative to the value I feel like I get. If they increased the price more than ~20%, I would probably cancel and use an alternative. Netflix is different; I actually don't watch much content and would happily live without it, but it appears to be good enough value during the times I do use it, particularly given that I'm well aware of how expensive their products are to create in the first place. The problems with reMarkable here are two-fold. Firstly, the existence of any subscription is problematic when the device has such a high up-front cost. Secondly, the prices they have chosen far exceed the value their "extra" services can offer. If they had priced it at $12 per year I would have probably grumbled but accepted it. By $24 we are around my personal tipping point where I think they are being unreasonable and I want to get out of the ecosystem. The real price of around $96 is totally absurd and makes me actively root against the company, at least enough to write these long comments and post them into the void.

branon 5y ago

Yeah at first glance this service's rollout seems terrible. You are dogged all through the checkout process with dark patterns and threats that your device will cost more while doing less if you don't subscribe... why would I buy this at all then?

zzless 5y ago

Indeed. I truly hope that PineNote takes off: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/

MisterTea 5y ago
I am not crazy about the PineNote design as the SoC and memory are well beyond what I would consider efficient for an eInk tablet who's primary role is to replace paper and pencil.

xboxnolifes 5y ago

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.

AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
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.
- dabedee 5y ago
  Pray do tell of those more open (and cheaper) alternative devices?
  - Uberphallus 5y ago
    Not sure it's any open (Kobo devices usually are hackable), but Kobo Elipsa[0] is feature par with Remarkable 2. [0] https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-elipsa https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-elipsa
    - nottorp 5y ago
      A friend of mine uses an Onyxbook (not sure what model) extensively for note taking and he seems pretty happy with it. Software developer with a bit of math thrown in, to get an idea of what he writes on it.
  - AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
    I'm being a bit future-looking here and considering alternatives to the gen3 reMarkable, not the current hardware. Specifically, the PineNote seems like it could fill the niche for me.
  - charbuff 5y ago
    I have a BOOX Max Lumi, it has all those features, for free. Plus is a fully functioning android tablet.

slightwinder 5y ago

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.

AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
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.
syshum 5y ago
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
- COGlory 5y ago
  disabling ssh would violate GPL licensing, right?

outworlder 5y ago

> Not everything needs to be a subscription. Everything needs to be a subscription, according to Wall Street.

macjohnmcc 5y ago

I got the e-mail to grandfather me in due to my recent purchase of the second gen device. It was a tough sell for many due to price before a subscription may doom it further.