Raindrop is not a new app. I've been using it for about five years now.
It's a solo developer project by one guy in Kazakhstan, which makes it all the more impressive. It has a great browser extension, a great desktop app (Electron-based, but very well done), and a great iOS mobile app (no idea about Android). It's also been under active development since I started using it.
One of its best features is its app, which allows you to browse your bookmarks in a split pane.
I've only checked out the AI feature now, since you mentioned it. I'm not a fan of pointless AI features that get added to apps, but this one is actually useful! It suggests places your bookmarks should be moved to. I had a bunch of stuff in an "Unsorted" folder, and it actually made really accurate suggestions for where they should be moved, and it also suggested moving some stuff I had miscategorized or where I had a more specific folder it could be in.
Honestly that's a rare good use case for AI: low stakes, passes through a human before anything actually happens, and is about ambiguos categorization based on human language.
I migrated from pinboard to raindrop this year, can confirm.
I was on Pinboard's lifetime plan. No subscription, just a single payment of $15 back who knows when. A few years ago I was asked if I wouldn't rather pay $5 per month instead, and declined. I wonder if all the outages and throttling were a result of underestimating the running costs.
Regardless, service quality had declined to such levels that I switched to raindrop this year. Ironically, raindrop is free to use, and may run into the same issue eventually.
I got the same e-mail and also declined to move off the lifetime plan. I would have considered it to support the site but I could see where the owner's attention was going to be focused. Politics is a hell of a drug.
I also migrated from Pinboard to Raindrop and can confirm it's a great service, is updated regularly and while I've generally not received quick responses to questions or feedback, I do eventually. It's also worth mentioning that at least for iOS and MacOS, it has nice integrations that work well, which I could never say about Pinboard.
I got Anybox[0] with the lifetime subscription (40$) and have been happy with it (Only for Apple devices unfortunately)
I can choose to automatically download a web archive when I bookmark. Also has a trial version. Can be a bit overwhelming to set things up. But works seamlessly once done.
Homebuilt tool. Started when the Pocket BS in FF happened, just kept playing with it. It's a PWA/Share Target on mobile and an extension in my browser.
