5 ms·

Automattic sometimes acquires companies and does nothing with them - like with Simplenote. As an early Beeper user, I am disappointed!

glenstein 3y ago
For me that is a positive, not a negative. They have kept it alive, have not messed it up, and have not upset the apple cart with wild changes resulting in loss of compatibility with past versions. There can be cases where it's a negative but I think Automattic has been a near-perfect steward of Simplenote. I suppose my only concern as ever is how they keep it alive at their expense without freemium'ing and paywalling it to death. I assume they are just footing the bill for its continued operation right now.
- smcnally 3y ago
  Agreed re stewardship & hope for long-term viability. Operation + updates ~3x / year for the iOS, macos and Linux clients I use daily and also for Android and Windows. Freemium and paywalling hasn’t infringed on utility yet and they’ve kept the source code available and GPLv2 https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron
luuurker 3y ago
Many companies don't know when to stop and end up killing their products by introducing bloat which almost no one wants and costs money to develop/maintain. Simplenote works, is maintained, and does what it says on the name... more should be like them. If all they do is keep Beeper running reliably and add new services as needed, then I'd say that's a good thing for most users.
lioeters 3y ago
> sometimes acquires companies and does nothing Honestly, Automattic is probably one of the best exit routes for them. They have a history of being a good steward of their acquisitions. Compared to other companies that either shut them down or enshittify their products as a manner of course, it's valuable when a company can simply maintain their acquisitions alive and keep them running, at least giving them a chance to grow.

glenstein 3y ago

For me that is a positive, not a negative. They have kept it alive, have not messed it up, and have not upset the apple cart with wild changes resulting in loss of compatibility with past versions. There can be cases where it's a negative but I think Automattic has been a near-perfect steward of Simplenote. I suppose my only concern as ever is how they keep it alive at their expense without freemium'ing and paywalling it to death. I assume they are just footing the bill for its continued operation right now.

smcnally 3y ago
Agreed re stewardship & hope for long-term viability. Operation + updates ~3x / year for the iOS, macos and Linux clients I use daily and also for Android and Windows. Freemium and paywalling hasn’t infringed on utility yet and they’ve kept the source code available and GPLv2 https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron https://github.com/Automattic/simplenote-electron

luuurker 3y ago

Many companies don't know when to stop and end up killing their products by introducing bloat which almost no one wants and costs money to develop/maintain. Simplenote works, is maintained, and does what it says on the name... more should be like them. If all they do is keep Beeper running reliably and add new services as needed, then I'd say that's a good thing for most users.

lioeters 3y ago

> sometimes acquires companies and does nothing Honestly, Automattic is probably one of the best exit routes for them. They have a history of being a good steward of their acquisitions. Compared to other companies that either shut them down or enshittify their products as a manner of course, it's valuable when a company can simply maintain their acquisitions alive and keep them running, at least giving them a chance to grow.