What is the Price of Our Privacy?

Notion may be free, but at what cost?

Image source: Obsidian.md

Notion has been one of my favorite apps for a long, long time. But, in search of a more private and personal note taking tool, I switched to Obsidian.

In recent months, using Obsidian has been more of a chore than a joy, and I even considered going back to Notion.

But as another Medium writer was correct to point out, Notion may be free but that doesn’t mean there’s no cost.

Notion does a great job in many ways, but I can’t say I’m truly comfortable with it.

Notion isn’t a private tool

It’s a necessary evil that many of our most used tools and services are cloud-first. That is they depend on the Internet to provide their most basic functionality. The list of these services could go on for days. Some are excellent. Some not so much.

While Notion falls into the “excellent” category, it concerns me for two reasons:

1. I can’t choose where my notes get stored. I have to use Notion’s cloud storage.

2. My notes aren’t end to end encrypted, meaning someone at Notion could read my notes without permission. While that’s unlikely, the fact that it’s possible is enough to keep me from wanting to store anything really confidential.

Too often, I’ve been quick to use tools based on what they can do for me rather than stopping to ask whether or not a particular tool actually respects my privacy.

Notion is a great tool, and I do recommend it. But it’s lacking in the privacy department. Image source: Notion

Notion is objectively cool, and probably one of the best note taking tools on the market - especially for the zero dollar price tag. But it’s lacking in the privacy department.

Sadly.

So despite my frustrations with Obsidian, I just can’t convince myself to switch back to Notion.

Paying to fix Obsidian Apple

Obsidian itself isn’t broken, but it’s implementation on iOS has been for me. You see, I’ve been using iCloud to sync my notes between my iPhone, iPad, MacBook and Windows computers, but that’s been one of my most frustrating experiences with technology in recent years.

Notes would usually sync correctly but occasionally fail to update on other devices. And sometimes iCloud on Windows would stop syncing completely and even need to be reinstalled.

Ideally, I’d prefer to use a different storage location - even if that’s just DropBox - but Obsidian on iOS is limited to using either:

1. iCloud, or

2. Obsidian Sync.

Why? Because Apple.

iCloud would be fine if I were using only Apple devices. Syncing between my Mac, iPhone and iPad only worked. But adding in my Windows devices? Less than ideal. And I don’t want to be limited to accessing my notes only on macOS or on Windows.

Obsidian Sync, though interesting, isn’t free.

And I’m cheap.

This frustrating dilemma led me to a fork in the road: do I pay for Obsidian Sync or go back to Notion?

Is paying to fix my frustration worth it?

Privacy and dollar signs

Initially, I wanted to say no. Paying wouldn’t be worth it, I thought. But just how much is being able to control my own data worth?

Obsidian lets me choose where to store my notes and keep them backed up at will. Notion doesn’t.

Notion is free and syncs across devices effortlessly. Obsidian is also free, but the best way to sync across devices - at least my combination of devices - isn’t.

Is the completely free option worth the potential privacy issues? Or is it better to pay a few bucks per month to have the assurance that my notes are kept private?

It’s a tough call.

But eventually I landed on the side of Obsidian Sync.

No, I don’t really want another subscription.

No, I don’t really want to pay for something another app can do for free.

But when I remember that Obsidian affords me privacy options that Notion doesn’t, it seems worth it to me.