The founder of Standard Notes (Mo Bitar) leaves Proton

[PurpleDime]

@InternetGhost

if anything it makes me think that it’s more likely that Standard Notes will integrate into the Proton ecosystem eventually.

FULL INTEGRATION MIGHT TAKE A LONG TIME

You say that as if that was in question before. I don’t think it is, but it’s clearly taking them longer than Simple Login. Not to mention the fact that Simple Login is not fully integrated into Proton.

Given the current situation with Simple Login and Standard Notes, I personally do not want to see Proton acquire another company, until they can prove they can fully integrate the ones they’ve already absorbed.

@Quantum

Founders and CEOs probably find it hard to transition to being an employee on what was once their own project/company.

I wouldn’t read too much into this.

SIMPLE LOGIN’S FOUNDER DIDN’T SEEM TO HAVE THAT PROBLEM

I hear you, but that’s not what we saw with Son Nguyen Kim, the French founder of Simple Login who has published numerous blog posts on Proton’s website about a variety of products, the last one being 2 weeks ago for the announcement of Proton Authenticator. We’ve seen nothing like that from Mo.

Obviously, people have different personalities, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that something went wrong, but still, I find it curious.

@ZenByte

He regretted hiring employees and adding complexity to Standard Notes

Do you mean complexity within the app or within the company?

SN DEFINITELY NEEDS MORE FEATURES

One of SN’s core values is to remain simple, and I believe that even with the features they’ve added, that remains the case.

However, I strongly suspect that Proton will make SN more complex to compete with other apps. IMHO, they have to, but they also can’t betray current users who prefer the simplicity. My hope is that they find a way to integrate a simple mode, which is what SN is like now and complex mode, that users can switch to.

@Praline

As for Proton not saying anything, I don’t think there’s anything special about it either. They wouldn’t make an official announcement everytime an employee comes and go.

MO BITAR IS NOT JUST ANY EMPLOYEE

If Proton was a bigger company, or SN a more popular app, I have little doubt that tech news outlets would have reported on it. When the founder of a company you absorbed leaves, it is not trivial news. It’s been over a month and almost no one is aware of this, in great part because Proton decided not to communicate about it.

On its own, Mo leaving is not necessarily alarming news, but when you combine it with the fact that SN has yet to be integrated into Proton after a year, that suggests to me that SN is perhaps slowly dying.

MY EXPERIENCE

I have been using SN for years. When Notesnook came out, I was so impressed with it that I became a paying subscriber. I paid for both SN & Notesnook simultaneously, and continue to do so. However, something has changed in the last couple of months for me.

Even though I was impressed with Notesnook, for years, I still used SN way more because it was faster. It still is. I used SN literally every day, and Notesnook, maybe once a month. That has changed. I now use Notesnook almost every day, and SN just once a week. Notesnook had a major upgrade recently that compelled me to use it more.

That is obviously just my experience.

@Praline

I also hope this means Standard Notes will finally be fully integrated with the Proton ecosystem (and added for free to current and future Unlimited users…)

STANDARD NOTE’S COMPETITIVENESS IS WANING

I hope so, too. That said, Proton will have to bring some major innovations to attract new users. Especially if they want the media to report on the integration to give it some publicity. Because right now, as a standalone product, SN is not the best note-taking app in the E2EE FOSS market. It’s good, but Notesnook is IMO, significantly better. In addition, Notesnooks is very competitive when you compare it to proprietary non-E2EE apps. SN, IMO, is not.