This is a small and focused project that is aimed to solve the double-subscribe button. If you want to see the roadmap for subscriptions, look at

We are ready to do this project now. It is a pretty simple frontend change. Unlike the grand plan for subscriptions, this project does not require a new identity system.

Problem

We have two concepts of subscribe and I think this is very ugly and confusing for users:

One of these buttons means "Give me email notifications" and the other one means "Keep this content synced and give me easy navigation access to it"

Solution

Instead of two buttons called "Subscribe", we will have one thing called "Subscribe" and another thing called "Notify Me". Favorites will go away because users will just use Subscribe instead.

Subscription

One of the subscribe buttons will now have the same functionality as the current favorite button. It will add the document to the sidebar.

We will automatically keep your subscriptions up to date using the daemon's subscription functionality.

This button will always use recursive subscription. It will not be a dropdown. It will be a toggle button.

Notifications

The second Subscribe button (for email notifications) will be renamed to "Notify Me"

The behavior will not change, for now.

Death to Favorites

We will get rid of the favorite/star button.

All favorites will be converted to subscriptions.

The favorites sidebar will go away.

Implementation Notes

Internally we will just continue to use "favorites" code.

We will just have a little code that keeps daemon subs in sync with the middle-end favorites.