This thread and @Bmosbackerās Apple Notes sync being back to normalā¦so tempted to try Apple Notes again from Evernote. 
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Thanks. I like what you were able to do with it and Iāll have to give it another try (Iāve been using Xmind recently).
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I also use iThoughts. Although I like MindNode better, that is, its design, iThoughts has more features and is more powerful.
As to design and features, iThoughts and MindNode remind me of the differences between OmniFocus and Things 3. iThoughts has more features, but itās not as pretty as MindNode. OmniFocus has more features, but itās not as pretty as Things 3.
By using iThoughts, I also avoid another subscription.
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Iāve been trying to eliminate my subscriptions as well. Iāve gotten rid of at least a half dozen in the last year. Iām down to these critical few that I donāt think Iāll be canceling.
Apple One - no brainer with my entire family on it
Fastmail - I pay this every 3 years, worth every penny.
Banktivity - Yearly Payment and not one Iāll ever cut out.
Feedbin - Iāve tried to run iCloud on Reeder & NetNewsWire to eliminate this subscription, but Feedbin is so fast thatās itās worth the yearly fee. Plus, I love that the developer keeps innovating with Feedbin and adding features.
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I totally get not wanting to have to include Dropbox. It feels vestigial to me, too. (But I am also trying out a SuperNote, which prefers Dropbox as well. Alas!)
And I could not agree more on the compile thing. I had finally wrapped my head around the first version of compile and they went and made it more complicated.
Sadly, since I work in the humanities, almost everything runs through Word, so most of my Scrivener drafts go to Word as they head into print.
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@iPersuade posted a really helpful video on how to compile to Word that has helped me a lot. Iād encourage you to check it out:
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I have to be honest with you @TudorEynon, Iām back to using the Byword editor for almost all of my editing of standalone Markdown documents. I only use BBEdit as a Markdown editor with the too-large-for-Byword files that roll up each yearās worth of my Daily Notes.
If developer @metzgereduard of NotePlan fame offered a version of his Markdown editing software for standalone documents, I would be all over that!
(I suppose another way would be if NotePlan were allowed to open Markdown documents in place without having to include them in the NotePlan library. Like Obsidian, NotePlan wants to work with files in its own folder.)
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These days, I have added Typora ā a markdown editor, markdown reader to my stable of plain text editors (BBEdit, Byword, and NotePlan). Typoraās appearance is very sharp and clean (I struggle with how best to describe its beautiful display!) Try selecting and copying some text and images from a website and pasting them into Typora to see its amazing display capabilities in a Markdown formatted document.
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None of my productivity apps are subscribed as I only use Apple Notes, Freeform, iA Writer, Pages, Keynotes and Affinity suites.
I have only iCloud 2TB.
The subscription usually includes 1Password (tried this year but wonāt renew because I always got email of new login), Strava, Apple Music and MUBI GO (arthouse movies online and in cinema).
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Thanks, that might be useful for me.
Iāve also drastically cut my app subscription spend, at least with the ones I have to pay for out of my own pocket.
Before cutting down on spending, I was paying for SetApp (4 devices cost me ā¬180 a year), Ulysses, DayOne, Drafts, Parcel, and MindNode. Iāve eventually adapted my workflow not to need any of these.
The only ones I was paying for recently were 1Password, Backblaze, Apple One, and YouTube Premium. I just canceled Apple One (Family) as I find YouTube Music a perfect replacement for Apple Music and itās included with YouTube Premium (I went to the dark side!!). I only kept Apple Arcade as my kids love it (we never watch AppleTV or use any other services in the package). That alone saves me ā¬336 a year.
My company provides all the other subscriptions I need: Adobe Suite, DropBox, TextExpander, SuperHuman, ChatGPT and Fantastical.
Itās a significant relief as I was spending a lot on apps I donāt need, and itās greatly simplified my workflow.
Also, I use Pages for writing too. I donāt miss Ulysses, and I use Scrivener for long form.
Well, this will probably scare you, 
but aside from YouTube, you and I are very close in our app usage. In particular, I have also defaulted to Apple Pages and Scrivener. Regarding Scrivener, I went back and forth for some time struggling between Ulysses and Scrivener. My biggest hangup with Scrivener was using Dropbox for syncing, but I got over it. A key decision point came when I discovered the difference between Exporting and Compiling in Scrivener. I subscribe to Apple One, 1PW, and Backblaze. I keep Dropbox below the 5GB threshold, so I avoid the added Dropbox expense.
Welcome to the dark side! 
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If you have a subscription to the NY Times, hereās an article on subscription culture.
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Just to add, I downloaded it to try and it seems just right for my needs, thanks so much. I have to say that the pricing is a bit better than Ulysses, which I liked but really was overkill. Just out of interest why do you have the three you do. It might be interesting for other readers too?
Think of it as automated capitalism. Spending without the hassle of spending. Acquisition without action. Or thought ā¦ agreeing to this trade, weāve become passive consumers who are allowing the balance of capitalism to tilt away from us. We have ceded one of our key powers as individuals: our agency.
That is an excellent summary of the problem.
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Iām in and out of my daily note in NotePlan all day, every day. Byword and Typora give me two different views of standalone Markdown-formatted plain text files. And BBEdit can do anything and everything with text files and even lets me poke around in most any file Iām interested in. I guess I just love text editors.
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Interesting. I might give BBEdit a try again one day then since you recommend it. I donāt write code, I did have it one time and quite liked it if I remember. I do like standalone text files that I can put, or end up in DEVONthink 3. I have to say though I put notes direct into that app with the sorter, it is my main way of taking notes, I donāt find it easy to actually write much in. I donāt know why. Recently I tried enlarging the written text for the print out: I left it after a bit, I couldnāt figure it out and went back to another writer. It will likely by Typora now; thanks again really. One of the pleasures of coming onto these fora.
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One of the joys of BBEdit is being able to take an entire folder of 825 HTML documents, and then format all of them at the same time.
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Iāve enjoyed reading this thread!
I am paying for Apple One Premier, YNAB, and 1Password. I just cancelled my ChatGPT Plus subscription based on this weekendās events.
I also enjoy gaming as a hobby on Nintendo Switch and Sony PS5. Unfortunately, both of those have subscriptions required for even rudimentary online functionality like cloud save backup. The base tier of Sonyās plan went up to $80 this year from $60! It might be too much for me to pay considering I stay away from multiplayer games, although I hate not having saves backed up.
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Itās easy to forget about automated payments. I set the ones that my bank sends out each month to expire every 4 payments. My life insurance company sends me a reminder before they withdraw my quarterly payment. Apple, as I recall, bills me then sends a receipt.
My āsolutionā is a spreadsheet listing all my recurring payments (with the exception of water and power) linked to a task that alerts me on the first Saturday of each month. It does sting a bit when I see the yearly total, but it encourages me to think about what I am spending.
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