Skiff, known for its best-in-class privacy-focused suite as an open source alternative to Google Suite, has been acquired by Notion. The acquisition has led to the discontinuation of Skiff's services, with the company set to shut down in six months. This move has sparked reactions across the tech community, highlighting concerns over the sustainability of privacy standards post-acquisition and the challenges faced by privacy-focused businesses in balancing user interests with investor expectations. Skiff had raised approximately $14 million in venture capital for its development. Despite its promise and the strong privacy design lauded by the community, usage challenges were evident, as highlighted by a user who noted that only 32 out of almost 5k subscribers actively used Skiff.
Skiff selling out their users underscores an persistent problem that affects many privacy tools. At the end of the day, businesses will always prioritise their investors over their users. Let’s take a look at how we got here, and what our approach is for solving this issue. 🧵
Skiff was acquired by Notion and will be shutting down in six months. I feel saddened, and surprised to see Skiff go. 🙏 But did I use Skiff daily? Admittedly, no, and this was part of the challenge they faced. In fact, only 32 out of almost 5k subscribers on the Console… https://t.co/Cx29ndU9z2
Kudos to the @skiffprivacy team for showing you can indeed create top tier design consumer apps with strong privacy. Remarkable. Thank you. 👏🥂🎉 Sad to see the most promising product suite (& team!) lose its independence — I wish they had continued to scale their own products,… https://t.co/v7ZCzpqR79
Kudos to the @skiffprivacy team for showing you can indeed create top tier design consumer apps with strong privacy. Remarkable. 👏🥂🎉 Sad to see the most promising product suite (& team!) lose its independence — I wish they had continued to scale their own products, and… https://t.co/v7ZCzpqR79
Skiff raised ~$14m in VC to build an open source alternative Google Suite. Now it's being acquired by Notion and the code has been taken down. All software is ephemeral. File over app. https://t.co/pS47oOTUBz https://t.co/8qTl4EoRI9
wow... i really had hoped notion get infused with some open source thats why @calcom has a longevity guarantee: https://t.co/mOw71B3H8r https://t.co/qXB4tW9dso
What a shame. Skiff’s suite was best-in-class for privacy; hard to imagine how that will be sustained at an acquirer with more extensive data collection. https://t.co/e9u9mG69hQ https://t.co/olZsm4ux9T
congrats to everyone but discontinuing is sad i just migrated all my personal inboxes to skiff :( @UnInbox you ready? https://t.co/fK3nqGFrl1 https://t.co/hJMyhqtRU2