Why Notion Highlights Wins When the AI Bubble Pops 2025

By the end of 2026, 87% of the AI “second brain” apps you see flexing on Twitter today will be dead, delisted, or charging $99/month for basic clipping.

We’ve seen this movie before (Remember Quip? Sunrise? All the blockchain note apps?).
When the VC money dries up, the fancy AI wrappers collapse, and people run screaming back to tools that just work.

Here’s why Notion Highlights is the single safest bet in your knowledge stack right now.

The Coming AI Note-Taking Bloodbath (Already Started)

43+ AI note apps launched since 2022
Average lifespan of a hyped AI wrapper: 14 months
Current burn rate trend → most run out of runway between Q4 2025 and Q3 2026
When the API bills hit and growth stalls, the first feature they kill is reliable clipping (because it’s “expensive”)

You will wake up one day to find your entire second brain locked behind a $240/year paywall… or just gone.

What Actually Survives Every Bubble

Tools that are:

Stupidly reliable
Zero dependencies on third-party LLMs for core function
Owned by users (your data lives in Notion, not their servers)
Profitable at $0–$12/month pricing
Boring on purpose

Notion Highlights checks every box.

The “Boring” Features That Become Superpowers Post-Collapse

Saves the exact HTML you see → no AI hallucination risk
Works offline (Pro)
Zero reliance on OpenAI/Anthropic/Groq for basic clipping
Your highlights live in Notion forever → even if the extension disappeared tomorrow, your data is safe
Runs on a business model that doesn’t need 100k paying users to survive

When Mem, Reflect, Tana, Capacities, and the rest start sunsetting or jacking prices, you’ll still be clipping Twitter threads in 2 clicks.

Real Talk from People Who Lived Through the Last Crash

2016: Evernote almost died → people lost 10 years of notes
2019: Bear added subscription → half the power users left
2023: Roam raised prices → mass exodus to logseq/obsidian
2026: Your move

Every single time, the people who kept their data in plain text/markdown/Notion walked away laughing.

Your Post-Bubble Knowledge Stack (2026–2030)

Notion → database + pages (free tier forever)
Notion Highlights → bulletproof clipping + highlights (free or $7–12/month)
Optional local backup → one-click export to Markdown/PDF weekly

That’s it. Nothing else has survived the last three cycles.

Final Verdict November 2025

The sexiest AI second-brain app today will be the most painful migration tomorrow.

Notion Highlights isn’t trying to be your AI coworker.
It’s the dumb pipe that just works — and that’s exactly why it wins when everything else burns.

Install the tool that will still be here in 2030.

→ Get Notion Highlights – the last web clipper you’ll ever need

Your future self already survived the crash.
This is how.