I think it’s pretty telling of the current state of affairs, when I feel dread at seeing an email from Readdle in my inbox.

I admit to not reading the subject line – I’d skipped ahead to the first line in the email:

Thank you for downloading Spark. Our team has worked really hard for the past four years to create the best email experience for you and your team across all Apple devices.

My first thought was, “Oh no, has Readdle been acquired? Is Spark being sunsetted? Do I have to find another email app?”

Luckily, they have not been acquired and I still have use of my email app. But this got me thinking.

Never before in all my years of using computers have I more felt the need of keeping my information portable. Whether it’s with my notes, emails, blog posts, anything, I’m now obsessed with knowing all the import/export options available in a piece of software before I trust it with my information. Because who knows when they would get bought up, or closed down, or change their business model in a way I don’t agree with?

I have to mentally steel myself with the knowledge that no matter what workflow I create now to work with my myriad of preferred apps and online services, one day – in the not too distant future – I would have to retweak the entire thing again.

I know this is not a new thing, and sometimes it’s not a bad thing either, I guess it just caught me off-guard today.