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The simplification this time does not work if it is in your interest to capture the truth of what is happening here. An open core technology requires two things. One is that the system is modular, and the other is that parts of such system are made proprietary in order to create a product around an otherwise free software. For example providing a single node of a database into the open source, and then having the clustering logic and mechanism implemented in a different non-free layer, is an open core technology. Similarly is open core if I write a relational database with a modular storage system, but the only storage that is able to provide strong guarantees is non free. In an open core business model around an open source system it is *fundamental* that you take something useful out of the free software part.

Notion describes itself as "a bottomless bin of building blocks. Every page you create in Notion will be composed of many "blocks," in the same way a LEGO castle is composed of many LEGO bricks

Each Notion template is like a SaaS app of its own, created by Notion or the Notion community. Notion template creators have the opportunity to monetize their templates. Users can select a starting template amongst hundreds of options and customize it for their or their team’s specific needs.

Microsoft is one of Notion’s biggest competitors. Microsoft launched a direct competitor to the collaborative all-in-one workspace called Microsoft Loop in November 2021. While Microsoft Loop’s initial traction is unclear, it could follow a similar trajectory to Microsoft Teams competing with Slack. After launching in 2016, Microsoft Teams surpassed Slack in DAUs by 2019, reaching 20 million compared to Slack’s 12 million.

Notion successfully achieved a product pivot in 2015 when Ivan and Simon stopped building a product they thought the world would benefit from and listened to their community to tell them what to make.

"The best programs are the ones written when the programmer is supposed to be working on something else." - Melinda Varian.

I believe programming, in this regard, can learn something from writing: when writing the first core of a new system, when the original creator is still alone, isolated, able to do anything, she should pretend that this first core is her only bullet. During the genesis of the system she should rewrite this primitive kernel again and again, in order to find the best possible design. My hypothesis is that this initial design will greatly inform what will happen later: growing organically something that has a good initial structure will result in a better system, even after years of distance from the original creation, and even if the original core was just a tiny faction of the future mass the system would eventually assume.