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The PsychonautWiki Journal app drastically changed for the worse. Now what?

A blog post by jade arson., published on 2025-09-05, updated on 2025-09-06, updated again on 2025-09-09, updated yet again on 2025-09-11.

enshittification - Enshittification is an informal word used to criticize the degradation in the quality and experience of online platforms over time, due to an increase in advertisements, costs, or features. It can also refer more generally to any state of deterioration, especially in politics or society. Similar forms include enshittify and enshittified.
-the Merriam-Webster dictionary

It all started back on April 24, 2025 or so, when they started to no longer open-source the GPL-licensed^[1] app^[2], and originally took the repository down (by now it's up again (see psychonautwiki-journal-android on GitHub, for example), but no longer maintained).
It was fine, whatever, considering that this app was in a perfectly functional state on its own, and didn't need much maintenance.

But then, with version 12.0, the first version after having gone closed-source (which dropped on September 4, 2025), they introduced the Premium "feature".^[3]

You might be wondering, "What would that mean for regular users?". Well, for those only tracking the one or other consumption of weed, coffee or nicotine, that would be alright. But as soon as you want to keep track of more than 3 substances (this could be your medication, or for recrational use - just to name two examples), it asks for the premium of:

for a monthly subscription: 1,99 EUR on iOS, 2,59 EUR on Android.
for a yearly subscription: 22,99 EUR on iOS, 19,99 EUR on Android.
for a lifetime payment: 69,99 EUR on iOS, 74,99 EUR on Android.

This might be doable for some, but it's definitely quite bad to start asking for money in a "Premium fee" way, especially without a word of warning to be found anywhere.
On top of that, the changelogs only mentioned "various improvements" - with no mention of a paywall introduction to be found. Doing these kinds of things to such an app can genuinely endanger those who rely on it.

The version history of the app, as listed by the Apple App Store: 11.9 and 11.11 are listed with 'Bug fixes', while 12.0 gets listed with 'Various improvements'.
^{something smells a little fish-y there...}

With version 12.1, which dropped on September 5, 2025, they started requesting "full network access", which feels definitely too sketchy at this point for an app that's supposed to keep track of very sensitive information.

A list of all requested permissions by the Journal app, version 12.1: full network access, Google Play billing service, and view network connections.
^{It feels like some sort of breach (or phoning home, perhaps :3) wants to really happen there…
(also, yes, I installed this app on my sacrificial Huawei Mate 20 for this screenshot lol)}

Now, what's the way out?

Update on Sept 11, 2025: As mentioned in the previous blog article update, there's a fork of it -- it's PsyLog, and as of writing this, it's available for both iOS and Android. It also can import the .json file exported from the Journal app, even when it's on v12.
I'd highly recommend switching to that fork, as over there, free app updates at least are guaranteed.

Previously:

Update on Sept 9, 2025: There's now a fork of it!^[4] Currently, PsyLog is only an iOS version via TestFlight or AltStore PAL (https://altstore.content.as207960.net/source.json), but there hopefully should be an Android version soon™.
If you're interested in helping out by reporting bugs, feel free to join their Discord server at discord.gg/psylog.

This part of the blog post has been kept for historical reasons, consider this outdated (except for the links and the converter, for if you'd rather stick with the old app).

On Android, you can get the last open-sourced version (so, version 11.11) from F-Droid, or from the mirror that I'm hosting.

On iOS, you can just get the last open-sourced version (also version 11.11) via TestFlight (which is maintained by zotan - thanks a lot, btw!) if you're not in the EU, but still need the app, or you can get it via this specific third party AltStore repository linked here, for those living in the EU (maintained by Q - thanks a lot to you too!!)

If you already upgraded to version 12.0 or newer and forgot to export your data beforehand, you'll not as easily be able to reimport the .json file into version 11.11 and older.
However, there is a converter you can use within your browser^[5] (which I'm also hosting specifically because of this situation) to get your file back to a state where it can be imported back into one of the builds that are considered safe.

…also, I'm just the one who spreads the word about it in a blog post.

I decided to check out the repository of the Android app and the initial commits on May 6, 2022 indicate that the Android app was GPL'd from the get-go. See the initial commit, for example.
The iOS version of the app, however, didn't get a license at all, from what it seems. Its repository goes all the way back to August 17, 2021, though.
A post by @zotan@estrogen.network made on Apr 24, 2025, on 14:08 UTC+2.
A post by @erin@quiescent.nexus made on Sept 5, 2025, on 07:52 UTC+2.
A post by @zotan@estrogen.network, made on Sept 9, 2025 at 19:01 UTC+2.
I was provided with this HTML file by CraftByte in a group chat — the initial script behind it was written by embr (here's the repository, for those wondering), though the included version here has been rewritten in JavaScript.