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9

Thanks for clarifying that, @mekentosj .

I was happy about the way it was earlier: the banner was displayed with a new release, demonstrating the new features you have. I could check it and close it.

I’m really don’t happy about this very attention-taking banner I can’t remove unless I pay for the features I don’t need.

The main feature for me was goodwill: I could pay if you made something I need or am excited about if I just want to support you and can do it now. But if not - I can keep using things as is.
I can’t now. Really huge bummer.

About the business model: I was really interested if you could keep it up, as it imposed good pressure on you - to keep innovating, making something people want.
The way I see things now - I shall pay just to keep up with what I liked and had already.

For the guys who don’t know other options: I’m really sorry you don’t. They exist. Not as UI / emotionally nice as Agenda, but they won’t keep you hostage as well. I mentioned Obsidian earlier, but many other options exist.

10

I think this banner seems rather confusing to Alexander than anything else, @mekentosj. But, and correct me if I’m wrong here, nothing’s changed (?). One still can:

  • Pay only when they want, or,
  • Choose to support with a subscription (and a discounted one, actually), or,
  • Choose to pay once and never again.

I think this is an improvement, a big one as well.

If that small banner is so annoying for you @alexander.potemkin then one of the things the devs could do is perform (un)moderated A/B testing, or a survey, to see which version users perceive more positively (with or without a banner), but testing could prove costly depending on what kind of scale they’d choose to do it.

There are ways to tackle this, like:

  • Change placement
  • (Re)think frequency of appearance
  • Perhaps don’t use a banner but an occasional system notification, maybe on the lock screen

Am just thinking out loud here.

Lots of options to go with, not sure are worthy the fuss though, although I know from experience that small changes = big impact. But it always depends on the (nature of) change.

Personally, I don’t see this as a very big deal.

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11

I think this banner seems rather confusing to Alexander than anything else, @mekentosj. But, and correct me if I’m wrong here, nothing’s changed (?).

Indeed in the model nothing has changed, what Alexander is complaining about is that if you are not a current user, you get to see this button in the top right corner, while before we would only show it to people who would have never paid.

Screenshot 2023-03-16 at 14.06.43

Perhaps you are right and we could only show it once every say 10 days, where you can then get rid of it if you click it, satisfying the need to be reminded from our side as developers, and still being able to get rid of it as a user who feels he/she doesn’t need/want the missing features. But not showing anything simply puts the balance too much to the latter and simply put, would ultimately threaten the app in the long run, which isn’t in the user’s interest either.

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12

@mekentosj , that’s it. And it muuuch more visible on the dark theme, attracting my attention there.

I don’t think I shall repeat myself anymore, after all: if you don’t like it - don’t use it.

But I will make one more attempt, just to make sure I put it right:

  • This banner on itself was something I liked - it was a notification for something new I can get if I would like to; now it’s something that pushes me to get something, I don’t really need;

  • I used to be completely happy about the product, I loved it and I spread the word about it - I believe it’s precious. Now I’m forced into something, and I really don’t like when someone pushes me into something. Especially, if he/she was not doing it earlier - I consider that as a change of the contract.

  • If I need / want new features - I will search for the ways to get them; if I don’t - I wouldn’t.

  • There are plenty of ways where you keep showing ‘paid’ feature windows - for example, now I have an extra button at the bottom of every note, that reminds me of the new feature.

To sum it up:

  • the main advantage of the software, apart from the obvious nice look and feel, was an easy model of monetization - challenging for the developers, but fair and transparent - now, it’s a move to push users to pay;
  • from my experience, push works better than pull only on mobile devices, but not in human relationships - if people are not buying, then it’s probably, because you are not delivering something that the customer wants, not because they are not aware - you used to ad new features in every release in a comfortable way and if it’s of interest - people will go ahead and buy it.

The reason I’m raising this noise and spending so many resources, it’s because Agenda used to be my favorite tool and I’m absolutely unhappy about the changes that results in loosing this tool.

If you say you keep it this way - I would understand, it’s your business, your business model, and your call, obviously. I would drift away and definitely won’t look back, as I would feel it as a broken promise.
Just hope that things could return to where it was, when you keep working on something people want, and that is what makes people buy it.

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13

It won’t return to how it was, the rationale I already explained, but we’ll try to come up with a middle ground.

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14

It’s quite a bummer. Especially the way it was done.

I consider this a major violation of the ideology you originally stated and I can’t understand how on earth users might not buy something they need if they see a gentle offer everywhere. And I don’t believe you could genuinely think people are not buying something they need because they are not reminded…

Thanks for letting me into the notes-taking world, but cross me out from your loyal users, I got a job now: migrate all my notes out.

15

A pity you feel that way, but best of luck to you Alexander.

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16

Just to clarify, our decision to make the badge more prominent actually came from discussions we had with friends using the app. They said things like “I’m never reminded to renew”. So even though they wanted to help us as a company, they realized they weren’t seeing the reminders to motivate them to do so.

In any case, the intention is to remind, not badger, so we will see if we can find a nice middle ground. Occasional gentle reminders.

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17

I guess I will just share this very simple product management book reference here: https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone-ebook/dp/B01H4G2J1U and this google query next to it.

18

Thank you for sharing!

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20

There might be other ways to remind users to renew.

But if you are getting distracted by the banner, it doesn’t make the change a major violation of the ideology. There are limitations because of the App Store and therefore I consider your statement unfair. You cannot expect a version to be maintained forever. But here you still get updates with bug fixes or changes to run it on a new macOS or iOS after years and still you can use the premium features you have paid for, even though you don’t pay for the app anymore. And you can use new features, which aren’t premium, for free!

There is one change and there will be changes, which you don’t like.
But in the end it is your decision to update the app, even though you have been satisfied by an older version.

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21

Note by the way that we have taken the feedback on board and starting in version 17.0.1 instead of showing it permanently we will only show the badge every 10 days, for at most 5 minutes or until you click/tap the badge to visit the premium features window, whichever comes first. In the end it’s not our intention to harass our users, we just want to remind them.

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22

In the end it’s not our intention to harass our users, we just want to remind them.

Probably, I’m from the other age group - luckily, don’t have memory problems yet =)

23

But if you are getting distracted by the banner, it doesn’t make the change a major violation of the ideology.

It is. It’s the first sign of the change. The original promise was - it’s not a subscription. Pay for what you need.

You cannot expect a version to be maintained forever.
Nothing is forever. Obviously.

But here you still get updates with bug fixes or changes to run it on a new macOS or iOS after years and still you can use the premium features you have paid for, even though you don’t pay for the app anymore.

Argh… That’s too complicated a sentence for me to process, but no - my two bug reports were hanging for a couple of years.

And you can use new features, which aren’t premium, for free!
Don’t need them. Really. Paid once to get one and to support the product. Managed not to forget somehow, btw.

There is one change and there will be changes, which you don’t like.
Didn’t expect a philosophical debate here, but thank you, I do know. And it’s my decision to go away as well as to notify others, that exit will be a pain.

Notion.so dump is a beautiful standard markdown files and attachments next to it. All lniks preserved. Very easy to migrate there and forward.

I recommend Notion, despite we go our separate ways for one project.
Agenda export? Or, you go and figure it out by yourself. You get either Markdown files, or TextBundle… bundle, that you have to process manually. And, anyway, you have to export all folders inside your Agenda. Manually, again.

But in the end it is your decision to update the app, even though you have been satisfied by an older version.

Oh, really? You are the person, who doesn’t use auto-updates?

I used to trust people and let them do their job, while I’m doing mine. Don’t do manual updates of the apps on my desktop, nor on most of the servers.

Anyway, I understand you have the right to share your thoughts, but my question was to the app developers. And I didn’t like the way it was handled, not I could be sure next release won’t start showing a little ad somewhere at the useless top space of the app… You know, cause you might forget to check the ad somewhere else?

24

No you can’t be sure, but isn’t that true for any other app? Especially for heavily VC funded apps like the one you recommend that’s very likely to be acquired by a big-co at some point in order for those VCs to make their money back? In other words, as with so many things, only time will tell…

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25

I understand that you don’t need new features and I understand your expectation for a distraction free app.
But you benefit of a great feature for free:

You get an app with the premium features you paid for, which will still work on new Macs, iPhones and iPads each with a new OS as long as the developers keep maintaining it.
That way you are able to use everything you want and need for a much longer period of time for free compared with other apps. In other apps you need to renew a subscription every year or pay for a new version for a new OS.

In my opinion, the change isn’t a major violation of the ideology, because you are still able to use everything you have paid for. Being nit-pick, I could say, you didn’t pay for a distraction free app. You expect it to be and it is fair to ask, if that change can get an overhaul. However, in my opinion it is unfair to say, the developers violate their ideology by this change, because of the described feature above.

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26

Well… you know how much time I spend extracting data and moving into two other editors to try? It was like ~30 minutes.

How many bugs they didn’t fix, that I reported? Only one. And I understand it was difficult to troubleshoot it and there was a practical work-around.

Is it perfect? No. But very easy to use and very easy to migrate. And no broken promises, because it’s just an editor, with no promises to build something different from others, with no subscription or something.

27

Thanks for that

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28
29

Thanks for sharing, and I believe that this:

So embrace the conflict of an angry customer as a rare gift of feedback. Remove your ego from the response. Extract the maximum amount of information to feed back into the offering.

That’s how you win. By building better rather than defending worse.

is precisely what we have done with the changes we’ve made from 17.0 to 17.0.1, based on your feedback, and in that sense we’re definitely grateful you took the time to tell us rather than walk away in silence. :+1:

1 Like