Hell, even if they had straight up invented backlinks I wouldn't be willing to deal with an application that costs $15 per month and gives me absolutely no control over my data. The possibility that an outage could cause me to lose work alone prevents me from ever giving it a shot.
And the idea that even though the copycats deliver to me the superior product, I should still give what amounts to charity to Roam because they designed a nice interface just strikes me as absurd. I don't see the point in being overly concerned about supporting new research since we already have a mechanism for that: patents. If Roam truly believes their work is revolutionary, they should have just applied for a patent.
> The possibility that an outage could cause me to lose work alone prevents me from ever giving it a shot.
They have an excellent data download option in the app. You can download in Markdown or JSON and then restore. The JSON format restores everything. The Markdown format restores syntax. I download both with every session.
> And the idea that even though the copycats deliver to me the superior product, I should still give what amounts to charity to Roam because they designed a nice interface just strikes me as absurd.
Where in my comment did I mention Roam being inferior? Right now it's the opposite. Copycats are offering bolt-on roam-like features which don't work the same. The developers don't have the same understanding of the problem that the Roam developers have.
Why is Roam blowing up right now when it's just another note taking app? People are seeing something in it that they haven't seen in other apps. Bolting on copy-cat features isn't going to capture whatever magic Roam is doing. People are doing themselves a disservice by looking for a Roam alternative. If you tried Roam and believe it sucks, then you aren't looking for an alternative, you're just looking for something with links (Roam does way more than that though.)
I have no personal stake in the app. I'm just amazed at the reviews that Roam has got. I have seen loads of people say that Roam has changed the way they take notes. Some even say it has been life changing. The service has been blowing up.
And the idea that even though the copycats deliver to me the superior product, I should still give what amounts to charity to Roam because they designed a nice interface just strikes me as absurd. I don't see the point in being overly concerned about supporting new research since we already have a mechanism for that: patents. If Roam truly believes their work is revolutionary, they should have just applied for a patent.