Recently, flomo has become very popular. I joined and used it extensively during its early beta testing phase. The reason I joined was simple: after reading the author's introduction, I thought it was a simple, alternative, and somewhat romantic note-taking tool.
After recording over two hundred Memos on it, I stopped using it.
It's not that it's not good, but from the beginning, I didn't intend to use it as my note-taking application. I only tried it out of curiosity. After experiencing it, the convenient input and random wandering approach it advocates are indeed good, but there seems to be room for improvement.
When choosing a note-taking application, its convenient input is certainly an important consideration, but what I care about more are the following points:
- Data security and privacy;
- Easy migration, support for importing and exporting various types of data;
- Cross-platform support.
I have a certain obsession with privacy, so when it comes to relatively private note-taking applications, my selection criteria are stricter. Can it achieve strict encryption, ensure that the service will not be shut down for a long period of time, and also guarantee data stability? In this regard, flomo, which uses WeChat as an input gateway, is difficult to pass.
In fact, there is a very simple way to filter choices, which is to consider whether I will regret this choice in ten, twenty, or even longer years in the future. When we extend the time frame to consider the problem, many distracting options no longer exist. At this point, making a choice will not be too difficult, and the probability of making a mistake is also low.
Just like the recent hype about the Alibaba Cloud Drive beta testing, my view in the channel is the same.
The purpose of writing this article is not to criticize flomo, but to express my demands for note-taking applications. On the contrary, I see the spirit of entrepreneurs in this note-taking application, which is commendable; even more commendable is its partial spirit - opening up many APIs, allowing capable people to expand interesting usage scenarios, which is somewhat similar to the spirit of the open-source world.
However, recently, it has been promoted too much, to the point of being annoying. Many people use grand and exaggerated words like "subversion" and "essence" to describe it, which is boring and repulsive.
For products, I hope there can be less hype; for product people, I hope there can be more sincerity.