I would like to express my discomfort with the recent native integration of Anki with AnkiHub. I understand that we live in a capitalist world and that there is room for paid services, but this change seems to deviate from the original philosophy that made Anki so popular: being an open and accessible platform for everyone. Even though the iOS version is paid, many of us continue to use and support Anki precisely because of its community-driven and collaborative nature.
The fact that this native integration favors a service that charges over $100 for information and functionalities that many in the community share freely feels counterintuitive and against the spirit of what motivates and strengthens Ankiās use. It feels like we might be opening a dangerous precedent that could, in the future, turn Anki into something less open and more profit-oriented.
I have nothing against the person behind AnkiHub, and I understand that thereās a need to be financially sustainable. However, this integration as a native part of Anki seems like a move that might compromise the values and collaborative nature of the platform.
I would like to open this discussion to hear the opinions of other users and to better understand what motivated this change.
Thank you for your response and for clarifying that this discussion has been ongoing for over three months, even if mainly on GitHub, where most participants are developers. I agree that itās quite a specific bubble, and now that the integration is reaching the general public, many of us who were unaware of these discussions are starting to catch up.
That said, itās good to know that this topic has a longer history. If thereās any movement toward alternatives led by Anki itself, like AnkiCollab, I will definitely contribute.
Iāll also be adding a suggestion to the beta version forum soon. Thanks again for your attention!
In my opinion a summary of the key conclusions looks like these:
The official Anki is not intended to promote a third party (Ankihub and Anking), this feature is for the convenience of medical student users.
The author of AnkiCollab is favorable to Ankihub and he has little objection to this feature: AnkiCollab authorās opinion
Other alternatives are not realistic solutions, it would be beneficial to both parties if other AnkiCollab-like platforms were developed based on the functionality developed by AnkiHub.
In short almost everyone agrees that Ankihub should not be promoted on Anki for desktop (probably including Ankihub), but official Anki or volunteers cannot afford the resources to develop a feature like this Ankihub integration, so it would be beneficial for both developers and users if Ankihub develops advanced features first and then volunteers develop them for free on that basis.
Itās still an open and accessible platform. AnkiHub integration doesnāt change that.
Ankiās licensing prevents that slippery slope.
FYI, the money goes to AnkiHub so it isnāt helping Ankitects in any way. Anki is simply providing a free platform. Hopefully, we will have other free and open source competitors in the future.
Though probably unrelated to this thread, do you mean AnkiDroid donations or indirect donations? I thought official Anki is a business and does not accept donations.