Disappearing apps and services

Alexei Baboulevitch (archagon) in a comment on Hacker News:

These indie apps are often marketed as beautiful, wholesome alternatives to grimy corporate or open source software, but how could I possibly rely on these products for essential tasks like note-taking if they’re just going to disappear out from under me in a few years? The idea that software has a lifespan controlled by the developer is, in my opinion, toxic to the market. It’s just one of the many things pulling the App Store down, and one of the many downsides of living in a walled garden.

I have to agree. More and more I’m inclined to use an open (but not necessarily free) alternative for just about any app or service that I rely on.

I wasn’t a Vesper user, but if I was, I’d be scrambling to find an alternative since it is now being shut down. I’m a happy Simplenote user which is free and open and backed by a company that wants to keep things open and running for as long as possible.

Picturelife’s recent closing, which I called in January of 2015, is also a stark reminder that even if we rely heavily on an app or service, and even if we support it with our money and our word-of-mouth, it doesn’t mean that it will stick around.

If you find yourself relying on an app or service that could disappear tomorrow do yourself a favor and seek out alternatives while you still have plenty of time to make the switch. You don’t have to switch, but knowing what alternatives are out there and having a plan can save you a ton of headaches. If I hadn’t switched from Picturelife to iCloud when I did I’d be hurting right now. Bigtime.

I’ll have more on Picturelife’s shutdown in a future post.

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