Remarkable itself does not promote the devices as hackable. That's the community that has evolved around it taking advantage of the company leaving the device open in this way. Furthermore, there is quite a thriving ecosystem[1] of custom software for the devices, so your assessment of it not working in practice is empirically untrue.

> the very restrictive underlying software

This is by design, based on publicly espoused principles, and everything about the product branding makes it very explicit and obvious. No one should buy a Remarkable device and be surprised about how restrictive it is.

> the user-hostile changes to the subscription

The "user-hostile" changes to the subscription is that they are charging for it.

It is worth emphasizing that nothing is restricted with device usage if you do not have a subscription. They expect you to pay if you want to use anything which runs through their cloud services, which is undeniably reasonable.

You can sync to other cloud providers without an active subscription.[2]

[1] https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable [2] https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Using-reMarkable-wi...

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kstrauser 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I almost bought one before I realized I’d be subscribing to it. No, that’s absolutely not reasonable given the price of the unit.

These things aren’t syncing videos. They’re moving some text and PDFs around. Even Apple gives you permanently free iCloud services when you own any Apple device, with the complaint being that they should give you more storage, not that you can’t use it at all.

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cooperadymas 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

They do have free cloud sync. It's capped based on the frequency of updating files rather than on a particular file size.

> Your notes will always be stored locally on your paper tablet, but only files used and synced online in the last 50 days will continue to be stored in the cloud and updated in our apps.

	▲	kstrauser 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		That’s a bizarrely low cap on a service with nearly zero marginal cost, and clearly meant to make you upgrade. I load my Kobo with things like CACM issues and books I buy on sale and then flick through them at leisure when I’m on a plane or such. So now I can’t fetch the July journal issue because it’s aged out? Nah, I’ll pass. It’s not controversial to say ReMarkable pushes you toward a paid plan. They’d even agree with that, I’m sure. It’s no great sin. Lots of things are subscription these days. It does mean I wouldn’t use it, though, because the non-rental alternatives are also pretty great.

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dbingham 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is really unreasonable entitlement. Expecting perpetually free cloud services of any kind is wholely unreasonable. Clouds have monthly costs. The only reason companies like Apple can offer them is because they are very well capitalized. They offer them to addict you. Small companies and startups that don't have access to cheap capital cannot afford to do that, and it's much more honest for them to not do that!

	▲	noir_lord 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Do they sell one that is functional without the cloud though. I’m not buying any device that requires a paid subscription to a cloud to get full functionality since if that goes away so does the ability to use the device. A policy that’s served me well having friends IRL who keep getting bitten by services/IoT changing/going away/end of life. Sell me a functional product with a subscription and I’m interested, everything else, no way.

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freedomben 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I largely agree, but I do think it's worth noting that they do actually have a screen sharing feature.

I don't use the screen sharing feature, and have no desire to use it, so it is quite irritating that they require the subscription to automatically sync my under a megabyte documents on the occasion that I need that.

Fortunately, it does still have Google drive integration which does not require a subscription. It does require a bit of manual work, but it's not bad

	▲	kstrauser 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Does screen sharing go through their cloud service or is that a local device-to-device system, similar to AirPlay?

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JohnKemeny 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> "Even Apple"

Literally the company of all time with most money

	▲	kstrauser 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		That’s my point, though. People slag on them all the time for being cheapskates with their iCloud offerings. And even they give you a fully usable, unlimited feature iCloud account for free to sync all your devices together. I’m certain it costs way more per user to provide iCloud, with its constant syncing, than it costs ReMarkable to see if your PDFs are still up to date.

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Melatonic 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Topographic maps would be amazing for these but I doubt we see that anytime soon