The Painful Foundations for Tools of Thought

Interesting, meandering analysis of different tools for thought.

Craft "lacked databases - a key feature for any Notion user... [and is] limited to the Apple ecosystem", but they prioritised foundations first, features later: "a lot of work in exchange for small visibility - and users often don’t notice this until the point they (desperately) need it ... core principles impact every bit of product development - meaning it’s ... often impossible to backward implement it... Another sore point for Notion is privacy". Craft allows you to store on external locations instead of their servers.

"I would write all my thoughts and link them in Roam... then a final structured version in Notion... Roam had the same issues with load times and the mobile experience was quite bad... Lightbulb moments don’t always wait to accommodate load time ... Tools for thought cannot be limited to the desktop - one has to be able to note stuff down anytime and anywhere. There is a strong case for native-first apps with offline access... Roam also has the same issue with privacy as Notion ... Obsidian and some other Roam alternatives provide end-to-end encryption"

Reflect ... aims to have end-to-end encryption and APIs right off the bat... looks like a polished version of Roam and was snappy fast.... We will be seeing more apps that do one thing exceptionally well ... makes sense to have an API rather than try to do everything at once.

PAIN: What do newer “tools for thought“ offer that the incumbents could not, due to the difficulty in backward implementation:

• Privacy and data ownership
• Accessibility offline
• Integrations and APIs
• Native-first and fast