July 22, 2026
Notes app? More like notes clapback
Why I'm building a note taking app without AI
Founder rejects AI note-taking, and the comments instantly turned into a roast
TLDR: A founder is building a meeting notes app that rejects AI, saying handwritten thinking beats machine-made summaries. Commenters immediately turned it into a fight over whether that’s a smart stand for thoughtful work or just a niche idea with no serious business future.
A founder showed up with a surprisingly bold pitch in 2026 tech-land: a meeting notes app that does not use AI at all. His argument was basically, “the point of taking notes is not to dump a transcript into a machine, it’s to force your own brain to figure out what actually matters.” In his view, writing notes during meetings is less about recording every word and more about spotting the one or two useful ideas hiding inside an hour of corporate small talk. It’s a very human-first message — and naturally, the internet smelled blood immediately.
The comment section quickly split into camps. One side nodded along with the anti-automation vibe, but the loudest reactions were skeptical, snarky, and a little merciless. One commenter basically called it a nice hobby project and warned that the real money is in tools that automatically transcribe and summarize meetings for businesses. Another went straight for the hypocrisy test: if the app is “without AI,” does that mean the founder also refuses to use AI to build it? Ouch. And then there was the community’s favorite side plot: a commenter jokingly summoned a familiar repeat debater from past threads, turning the discussion into a mini sequel with receipts in the form of old Hacker News links.
So yes, this was a product announcement. But the real show was the classic internet cage match: thoughtful craftsmanship vs. scale-at-all-costs, with bonus allegations of anti-AI purity theater.
Key Points
- •The article presents Docket as a note-taking system built specifically for regular meetings.
- •The author states that Docket is not being built as an AI note-taking or transcription product.
- •The article defines "active note taking" as manually distilling the most important points from a meeting rather than recording everything.
- •The author argues that writing notes during the meeting helps users crystallize and remember important information while context is highest.
- •The article says AI can capture and summarize conversations but is not designed to provide the same in-the-moment prioritization and internalization as manual note taking.