> I've been wondering lately why "new features are released regularly" is generally considered a boon when talking about software and specifically in a product that serves a relatively simple and clear-cut need like a bookmark stash

There's a very good talk by Moxie "the ecosystem is moving"[1][2] and the reason you need your software to be changing constantly, even when it's doing one thing well, is because all other software is changing, moving requirements, compatibility, and integrations.

Also, it's not like we have no progress in UX. I quite like the light/dark theme in apps changing according to the time of day. It only really started working well within the last two years after all apps adapted.

[1] https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8

I agree with your general point, but I don't think it's applicable here really. Raindrop targets users who aren't looking for "a relatively simple and clear-cut... bookmark stash". That's part of what it offers, but the actual value over a myriad of other tools is in the broader feature set, like web page highlights, uploading files and treating them as bookmarks, automatic bookmarking from other web services (e.g., auto bookmarking Twitter favorites), etc. There's still a ways to go for the service without departing from the core vision. For example, one of the more popular user requests seems to be for bookmarked PDFs to have the same highlighting options as bookmarked web pages.

Since I started using Raindrop, the developer has added features like permanent snapshots of pages you save, the ability to highlight things on webpages, automatic daily backups, tag autocompletion, and has made significant improvements to the Safari extension and iOS app. I find a lot of the new features useful, as I'm sure most users do. If I wanted a simple bookmarking service, I would use one (or more likely make my own).

> a product that serves a relatively simple and clear-cut need like a bookmark stash

By the same reductionist logic, you could argue that people don't need a bookmarking service at all, they can just save bookmarks in a text file. Simple, clear-cut. No fuss.

Perhaps it's to further justify the subscription pricing model. Not that I have much of a problem with it in this instance.