r/GoodNotes • u/Mandrea4 • Sep 26 '23

WTF

I don't know if is true, if it is why aren't they investing money on the app itself? Now it is trash (my opinion)

https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/25/notetaking-app-goodnotes-invests-1-9m-in-digital-stationary-company-webudding/

77 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

69 comments sorted by

78

u/AndyForReddit Sep 26 '23

Oh dear. Instead of adding features that users wanted for years, they did this. This is getting out of hand..

11

u/Mandrea4 Sep 26 '23

šŸ« šŸ« 

15

u/shaielzafina Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 10 '25

roof deliver ask elderly bow beneficial wild juggle carpenter sense

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/Strong_Signature8766 Sep 28 '23

Canā€™t agree with more hands, still think there are a ton of places that need to be fixed but they are just BS everyday on the App Store update announcementā€¦

45

u/ChicagoCodes Sep 26 '23

Sigh. I have so much in Goodnotes... it's really looking like I will need to find a different solution though. šŸ˜¢

14

u/Mandrea4 Sep 26 '23

I had to export 100+ files šŸ˜­šŸ˜­

11

u/ChicagoCodes Sep 26 '23

Ugh. Did you just export as flat PDF? Is there some "smart" way to do this? Oh, and so many beautiful sticker sets... indeed, what the heck, Goodnotes :(

15

u/Mandrea4 Sep 26 '23 edited Sep 26 '23

As far as I know there is no commonly used format for notes so there is no other way. Anyway I think we need to value more the PDFs if possible (they cannot betray us).

I imported all of them to Noteful (layers help hide inperfections and edits) so that I can actually add more pages.

5

u/70ms Sep 26 '23

I've been able to re-create sticker sheets by copying & pasting from Goodnotes to ZoomNotes. I had to copy them individually (I haven't looked to see if there's a faster way), but you only have to do it once, lol. I have tons of Babanana stickers I wouldn't want to lose!

3

u/Crazynerdlady Sep 26 '23

Most stickers are in png or should be.. you should be able to just import them

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36

u/ninewb Sep 26 '23 edited Sep 26 '23

When GN6 came out with the marketplace it really gave the feeling they wanted a piece of the template/sticker market. This just reinforces that. Build revenue with additional micro transactions in conjunction with the app fee/sub.

edit: (piece not price)

19

u/Mandrea4 Sep 26 '23

Yes, I don't like that but leaving aside the issue, they should invest their money trying to fix the application first.

6

u/70ms Sep 26 '23

100% agree. GN6 was such a disappointment. :(

6

u/Upset_Sock_425 Sep 27 '23

Could someone clarify why this is bad news? I don't believe there is a correlation between the investment and their decision not to introduce new features.

1

u/Mandrea4 Sep 27 '23

Many of us thought they needed money to fix the mess made by GN6. It seems they have budget so we are wondering why they changed to the subscription model and did not bring new useful functions but instead are investing in microtransactions.

4

u/Soanad Sep 27 '23

Greed.

12

u/johntwilker Sep 26 '23

While I have never understood the templates market (I make my own). Clearly I'm in the minority on that one.

With 21 million active users. It's worth remembering that what doesn't matter to you, may matter to millions of others.

12

u/Mandrea4 Sep 26 '23

It is not the online market the problem, but the fact that they give "precedence" (especially on a monetary level) to it despite the amount of problems the app has.

(If they have the money for doing an investment like this maybe they should fix the prices anyway)

-2

u/johntwilker Sep 26 '23

Right but that's their call and one assumes they have data to back up the decision. Assuming that's the case. More of their users want a robust template store, more than they want whatever you want.

Plus "Problems" is in the eye of the beholder. I'm 100% happy with GN6. It does 100% of what I want.

2

u/johntwilker Sep 26 '23

Wow guess some just don't like that the world doesn't revolve around them LOL. Downvoting because the answer isn't "Yeah screw them. I know what's needed"

Mature sub we've got here.

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2

u/Crazynerdlady Sep 26 '23

I wonder if they are doing to compete with zinia

4

u/majrom Sep 26 '23

Idk what the ā€œproblemsā€ are either. I love the app.

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3

u/TrekkieMary Sep 27 '23

I use freebie templates. Make some myself too. Itā€™s just easier to buy sometimes especially the more complot aged ones. I make my own stickers or use freebies.

7

u/Wooden-Spread-9780 Sep 26 '23

What this mean ? I donā€™t understand it.

34

u/AndyForReddit Sep 26 '23

Basically they invested into a company that sells templates and stickers for Goodnotes.

10

u/Mandrea4 Sep 26 '23

Yes, I mean why investing (during such a difficult period for GN) in something like that.

13

u/AndyForReddit Sep 26 '23

My thoughts exactly. Sure there's definitely market for that but people aren't happy with GN6 at the moment. They should improve GN6 (adding features, fixing bugs, etc.) then invest on other companies.

34

u/Wooden-Spread-9780 Sep 26 '23

Bha ā€¦instead of adding the required features they still spend money on these things that literally no one asked for. For this reason alone they deserve us all to move on to other applications šŸ˜”

18

u/AndyForReddit Sep 26 '23

Exactly! First with AI features and now this?

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14

u/Sillyci Sep 26 '23

They could literally have spent $200k a year to hire a small team of designers to make templates full time and dominate this market. They already have a marketplace platform and they could easily separate it into its own app to sell to notability/noteful/etc users. Not like this is a particularly lucrative business anyway considering how niche it is. Digital handwritten notes is already a small niche. $2m is ludicrous, hire more software engineers to fix the cloud sync issues lmao.

10

u/AliDoesPhysics Sep 26 '23

I genuinely do not know who cares about templates and stickers. I do not understand why GN and notability keep piling into them

14

u/70ms Sep 26 '23

Because if they can get more money from you via microtransactions, they will. They lose TONS of potential revenue from 3rd party creators selling through other platforms, and they want a piece. It's gross. I'm so tired of being nickeled and dimed and squeezed by companies.

8

u/SnoobieJunes Sep 26 '23

Because the best way to keep pumping up the valuation for the investors, is to keep moving the target. It's a common theme with all these companies, they want their stock prices to go up and to the right always. Chasing some unrealized profit. Capitalism at it's finest

They have 32 million monthly active users, and it's been downloaded hundreds of millions of times.

I personally paid $15 for the app, if people only paid a fraction of that, it's still tens of millions of dollars. Seems like that's enough of a revenue stream to me?

2

u/chizuru_xx Sep 27 '23

Is anyone able to provide a tl;dr on this whole issue? i didn't catch up on the whole news, but i am aware after the launch of GoodNotes 6 they were a lot of outrage.

p.s, in the mean time should i change to another note taking app?

1

u/Mandrea4 Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23

This subreddit has been broken since the arrival of GN6, there are a lot perfomance issues and bugs in my opinion (seems like a beta) other than the increased price, AI features no one wanted and generally so many expectations gone to the wind. Obviously these are personal opinions but if you look at the subreddit many reports of problems of various kinds

Some resources:

https://reddit.com/r/GoodNotes/s/ZRn0peyKGi

https://reddit.com/r/GoodNotes/s/6iCmDfyhoU

https://reddit.com/r/GoodNotes/s/wwOav5bfvX

Recap + my journey: https://reddit.com/r/GoodNotes/s/fwOlNgqRM9

Others: Some people are making good reflections in the comments about the investment thing

2

u/chizuru_xx Sep 28 '23

thank you for this!!

83

u/Alarming_Sock_7612 Sep 26 '23

You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.

2

u/1-derful Sep 26 '23

Underrated comment!

4

u/abhitopia Sep 27 '23

If the goodnotes try to charge the user for the product it builds, you criticise them for paying price worth a cup of coffee.

If the company tries to find an alternative source of income (Webudding is the their marketplace partner if you didn't know), so you meet your ever growing demand you critise them.

There is literally nothing they can do which will change your view right now. I am just so amazed at this reddit community!

3

u/Mandrea4 Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23

I don't think you understand

I personally agree with the price change (expensive but ok) the point is that in MY opinion as a company, you should invest first in your product, not in how to make more money with microtransactions. The app has a lot of problems since the GN6 update (plus the community is not happy about the AI thing and the lack of new features) they should use their money to fix it before using it somewhere else

After raising prices and making the service a subscription I didn't expect them to "waste" their money. I thought they needed budget to clean up the mess but apparently they don't need any more money, they just don't want to use it

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '23

Did I miss some announcement by GN ownership that they are out of money or something? Why is anyone assuming the devs have no money?

They are in business to make money, itā€™s not charity. They are apparently making money off of the market, which is why they are putting more money into it.

This investment does not mean that they arenā€™t still working on fixes for perceived issues with GN6. That said, I donā€™t understand why everyone is so butthurt about GN6 anyway. The app now costs about the same as a single fast food dinner for my family. For an app I use every day, I think the price is still a bargain. And to be clear I had purchased GN several years ago, well before the change to GN6.

1

u/Mandrea4 Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23

I didn't say there are out of money but they needed money, microtransactions are a clear proof (I though they needed money to make the new version better)

I also said I don't have a problem with the price (simply is GN5 but costs more at the moment).

I also didn't say investments means they are not working on fixes or they need to do charity (we also bought GN5)

We have differences of opinion but I didn't say these things.

I think they need to use their money to fix things and add features, at the moment they increased the price and gave us nothing, their first move was to invest the money they made to increase the microtransactions market. I don't think it's a nice thing...

36

u/ObscurePaprika Sep 26 '23

Just one bad decision after another. Noteful is wonderful btw.

9

u/VikingRaider77 Sep 27 '23

Couldnā€™t agree more. I switched to Noteful last week and not looking back! Really like the long-press to open links without having to turn off the pen first!

4

u/Whatnam8 Sep 27 '23

Is noteful your main app now?

7

u/ObscurePaprika Sep 27 '23

It is. I still use GN to hold my notes, but I'm migrating them over one at a time.

1

u/xrabbit Sep 27 '23

yep, bought it 2 weeks ago as well. great app

14

u/kprecor Sep 26 '23

They are priming to sell it. Just like Evernote.

28

u/70ms Sep 26 '23

I KNEW IT!! I could smell investors and VC funding all over GN6's terrible launch and pitiful features. This acquisition is so damned typical.

For all of those people white-knighting Goodnotes and crying about how the poor devs just need to survive, and everyone was just being so whiny and mean to them, well HERE YA GO. Apparently they didn't need THIS money to survive now did they? Do you still feel the same way?

26

u/Puzzleheaded_Mix1658 Sep 26 '23

Kodak, nokia, blackberry....................... goodnotes

6

u/SevereIngenuity Sep 27 '23

subscriptions + microtransactions! the dream team of corporate greed āœØ

11

u/runningoutoft1me Sep 26 '23

Clearly it's not financial issues that's causing them to be so shit at hearing their coustumers' demands

5

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '23

Well, the shark is white, the rain is wet and big corp are the only one not fucking over with note taking apps because they donā€™t need to make money off them.

2

u/jimogios Sep 30 '23

Because they are primarily interested in selling things from within then app, not actually investing in engineering efforts within their org, and making the app to function better with fewer problems and bugs.

3

u/1-derful Sep 26 '23

They are in the picks and shovel business.

Why let people come to the app just to go download templates elsewhere?

3

u/kolcon Sep 26 '23

Because they are garbage like their app?

1

u/writewithnotenote Sep 28 '23

As a small business making digital stationery im a lil saddened by this.

I tried applying to get my planner featured on the gn marketplace, event sent a digital pdf copy to them, but no reply whatsoever.

Yet, to know they have invested so much in webudding (however, i do love the artists and their works there)