There’s something almost subversive about Anki. In a world where every app is designed to capture and monetize your attention, here’s one that actually wants to give your time back to you. It’s the most popular education app in the world, yet it has no marketing department, no subscription traps, no notifications designed to drag you back into its ecosystem. It costs $25 and does exactly what it promises: helps you remember things.
This should be normal, but it’s become revolutionary.
I’ve been thinking about this paradox lately, particularly in light of our ongoing cultural conversation about technology and human flourishing. We’ve grown so accustomed to being the product that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to simply be the customer. Anki reminds us.
The app was created nearly twenty years ago by Damien Elmes, an Australian developer who was studying Japanese and needed a better way to memorize vocabulary. Rather than accept the frustrating cycle of learning and forgetting that plagues all serious learners, Elmes decided to build something based on actual memory science.
What he created was elegant in its simplicity. Anki takes the century-old research of Hermann Ebbinghaus on spaced repetition and makes it practical. Show someone a flashcard. If they struggle with it, show it again soon. If they master it, wait longer before the next review. The algorithm adapts to how your particular brain learns, creating a personalized forgetting curve that maximizes retention while minimizing time spent studying.
But here’s what strikes me most about Elmes and his creation: the restraint. In an age of founder-celebrities and startup theatrics, Elmes has chosen a different path. He doesn’t give TED talks or build personal brands on Twitter. His biography is thin by design. The work speaks for itself.
This points to something I’ve been noticing in my reporting on technology and society. There’s a growing divide between two philosophies of digital creation. On one side, you have what we might call the attention economy approach: build something that maximizes engagement, harvest user data, optimize for time spent in-app, scale rapidly with venture capital, and eventually extract maximum value through advertising or subscriptions.
On the other side, you have what Elmes represents: the utility approach. Build something that solves a real problem, charge a fair price for genuine value, respect users’ time and privacy, and grow through word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.
The conventional wisdom says the first approach always wins. Venture capital flows toward companies that can promise explosive growth and network effects. Media attention goes to the flashiest launches and the most charismatic founders. Users get addicted to the dopamine hits of social media and gaming mechanics.
But Anki suggests a different story is possible. Here’s an app that became number one in education not through growth hacking or investor backing, but through trust. Medical students recommend it to other medical students. Language learners share it in forums. Law students pass it along to their study groups. It spreads the way good restaurants do: slowly, authentically, through genuine recommendation.
The business model is refreshingly straightforward. The desktop version is free and open source. The iOS version costs $25 as a one-time purchase (not a subscription), and that single transaction funds the entire operation. Android users can use the free AnkiDroid app maintained by volunteers. No ads, no data collection, no premium tiers designed to make you feel like you’re missing out.
This model works because Elmes understood something that many tech entrepreneurs miss: sustainability doesn’t require infinite growth. A tool that genuinely helps people will find its audience. A creator who focuses on craft rather than scale can build something that lasts.
I think about this whenever I encounter the latest crisis in our digital ecosystem. Whether it’s the mental health effects of social media, the erosion of privacy, or the general sense that our devices own us rather than serve us, the problems often trace back to misaligned incentives. When your revenue depends on maximizing user engagement, you inevitably end up manipulating users. When your growth depends on network effects, you inevitably end up creating addiction and dependency.
Anki points toward a different set of values. What if we designed technology to be genuinely useful rather than merely engaging? What if we optimized for user agency rather than user retention? What if we measured success by how much we helped people accomplish their goals rather than how much time they spent with our products?
These aren’t just design questions; they’re moral questions. And they’re becoming more urgent as we grapple with the downstream effects of the attention economy on everything from democracy to mental health to our capacity for sustained focus.
The remarkable thing about Elmes is that he seems to have intuited these principles from the beginning. Anki doesn’t gamify learning with points and badges. It doesn’t send push notifications to maintain “streaks.” It doesn’t try to expand into adjacent markets or platform other services. It does one thing exceptionally well and gets out of your way.
There’s something almost monastic about this approach. In a culture that celebrates the flashy and the viral, Elmes has chosen depth over breadth, craft over commerce, substance over spectacle. His app has quietly helped millions of people learn new languages, pass medical boards, and master complex subjects. That impact may be harder to measure than viral growth metrics, but it’s more meaningful.
The broader lesson here extends beyond technology. In every domain of modern life, we face a choice between systems designed to extract value from us and systems designed to create value for us. The first category includes much of social media, many subscription services, and the gig economy platforms that promise flexibility while delivering precarity. The second category includes tools like Anki, local libraries, well-designed public transit, and other institutions that respect our agency and dignity.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that supporting creators like Elmes isn’t just about getting better software. It’s about proving that different values can succeed in our economy. Every time we choose the thoughtful tool over the manipulative one, the sustainable business model over the extractive one, we’re voting for the kind of digital future we want to inhabit.
Anki works because it treats you like a human being rather than a resource to be mined. In our current moment, that shouldn’t be revolutionary. But until it becomes normal again, we should celebrate the quiet revolutionaries who remind us what’s possible when technology serves human flourishing rather than the other way around.
The next time you’re frustrated with some app that seems designed to waste your time, remember that there are alternatives. They may not have the biggest marketing budgets or the most venture capital backing, but they’re built on better principles. And sometimes, just sometimes, those principles win.