I thought Anki was just a flashcard app? That's like hello-world tier software. I don't understand why there would be a whole business around this.
You're right that it isn't, and doesn't need to be, the most complicated thing in the world.
But there's a bit more to it than it sounds like. Deck management, customizing flashcards (html/CSS templates), spaced repetition algorithms (including many user-customizable settings), statistics and visualizations.
Most importantly probably are the things they host online. Right now you can freely sync your data between devices, and they have a community portal where people upload decks to share. I'm imagining these will be among the first targets for paywalls (but could always be replaced by the community).
Looks like another musescore situation.
Open source app with paid addons
The business model worked once, time will tell if it will work again.
I've been surprised that I haven't had to pay for Anki cloud sync yet.
Just read through.
AnikiHub's page is a little concerning on its own, with 'we offer AI features!' blatantly front and center.
More worrying is that in their post they go out of their way to say "Anki's core code will remain open source" (emphasis mine).
Otherwise, idk, sounds like at a base level they have the right ideals in mind.
Excuse my skepticism (it comes with experience), but after reading through AnkiHub's PR-speak AI slop, I doubt that a company with 40 employees that already uses a monthly subscription and AI is not going to enshittify this project. Did their team contribute anything to the OSS project while they were building a for profit company on top of it?
My guess is they'll charge for data storage in their servers. It's the lowest hanging fruit.
Time will tell. The words of AnkiHub are quite comforting, as it seems they are a small organisation focused on med students. It also seems they were surprised themselves with the offer they received when asking for collaboration.
They also say they will keep it open source 🤞
There is always the fork option
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