As a person who literally works on the Airtable API for a living, and founded an Airtable-based startup, I knew this was coming. Airtable deserves to be replaced by a good open-source alternative, for the way they've treated their customers. They built a great product that people love, and then made the pricing inaccessible to small business, ignored the API for years (I've been developing on top of the API since 2015, barely any improvements since then), piled on shit that no one asked for (Apps/Blocks) instead of working on the API that everyone asked for, made certain essential features like the metadata API invite-only, and are generally self-centered and obnoxious in their messaging (just see their blog post describing the launch of Airtable Blocks/Apps - "A half billion apps are about to be created.") Yes, those half-billion apps on top of Airtable will be made, but not on the original Airtable platform, because they've closed their software down and made interoperability a pain, and hid basic features like apps and record colouring behind a paywall. Meanwhile, they don't know how to build an app that can handle more than 50,000 rows and there are feature-request threads that are literally years old. LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS, dammit.
Airtable could've easily been the next Excel if they had just not been so tight-fisted, protective, greedy and aloof. There are plenty ways to monetize such a great product if they had just allowed people to use it. I have a feeling like their leadership was inspired by Steve Jobs, but they blindly applied Apple-esque walled garden philosophies to a domain where it makes no sense, because no one can actually use a cloud product without a proper API (operating systems are a different story).
I complain even though my life literally depends on Airtable. Shameless plug: I'm the founder of Fintable.io, a bootstrapped startup that syncs your bank accounts to Airtable, and I have no other source of income. I love Airtable, but I'm just sick and tired of their shitty castrated API that can't even stay up reliably. Maybe this is the trigger that will cause somebody over there to wake up, because it isn't too late for Airtable to win at this game (and I hope they do).
Airtable could've easily been the next Excel if they had just not been so tight-fisted, protective, greedy and aloof. There are plenty ways to monetize such a great product if they had just allowed people to use it. I have a feeling like their leadership was inspired by Steve Jobs, but they blindly applied Apple-esque walled garden philosophies to a domain where it makes no sense, because no one can actually use a cloud product without a proper API (operating systems are a different story).
I complain even though my life literally depends on Airtable. Shameless plug: I'm the founder of Fintable.io, a bootstrapped startup that syncs your bank accounts to Airtable, and I have no other source of income. I love Airtable, but I'm just sick and tired of their shitty castrated API that can't even stay up reliably. Maybe this is the trigger that will cause somebody over there to wake up, because it isn't too late for Airtable to win at this game (and I hope they do).