doko is/was a new social media app. It is/was built by two productivity youtubers, jvscholz (James, who also has a couple other channels) and Reysu (Eric), with the intention of providing a place for media recommendations to come from people, not algorithms. This is a noble goal, and one I have wanted for a while; I even considered trying to build something similar long before it was announced. Sadly, it seems to be abandoned, and this bothers me.
I first heard of doko from a jvscholz video. I don't remember which one, but I was immediately interested, signed up for the beta, frequently checked in on the project to see how it was doing. Eventually, I got an invite to try the app out, and along with it access to a community discord channel. There was quickly a decent amount of usage and things seemed to be going alright, but there were some early warning signs: communication from Eric and James was sporadic and inconsistent, and development updates were often hazy.
The last update for the beta, and the last entry on the doko blog, were on May 26, 2025. The beta was iOS only, run through Apple's TestFlight program. TestFlight builds expire after 90 days, and the app stopped functioning on August 24, 2025. The last communication from the team was a James response to a support request on August 10, 2025. The last meaningful message was much further back, July 13, 2025, from James:
sorry guys for the delay in development we have a entirely new app ready with an improved faster architecture but there’s been some stuff in each of our personal lives that are slowing things down, i’m back in la though so development is gonna ramp up again
Aside from ghosting the discord, the founders have completely ceased mentioning doko in their youtube videos despite actively championing it in the past. Notably, in a recent video from Eric once again talking about his phone setup, doko/a dev build of it is nowhere to be seen. James would often leave a link to doko in the description of his videos even if it wasn't relevant, but no longer does so. During development, we would also often see cameos from one of the founders in the other's videos, since they were sharing office space for much of the day, but these crossovers have all but disappeared (aside from some B-roll footage I've seen in recent Reysu videos).
I think it is fairly clear at this point that the project has been abandoned. I would be happy to eat my words and see doko release better than ever, but it seems incredibly unlikely. This is sad, since there were (and still are!) many people in the discord excited by the app (myself included!), but it especially stings because of the lack of communication for the last half year. Unfortunately, it gets worse.
On April 29, 2025, Eric posted on the doko blog announcing doko+, a premium service for doko supporters. This was touted as a way to support development and receive some perks in the app, most notably a functional dark mode. Gating quality of life features behind a paywall is already in bad taste in my opinion, but it is absolutely heinous to release this and then stop development less than a month later! Again, the last update was released on May 26. The price of doko+ was $5/month, or, $100 for lifetime access. In the discord, I recall mention of the $100 price being a limited time offer, special for early adopters, and I saw multiple people in the discord happily purchasing it. It is outrageous to me that the app only existed for another 4 months, 3 of which saw no new updates.
I considered paying for doko+, but decided to wait and see how things panned out. I am very happy I did so, but still disappointed with the outcome.
This whole debacle has really soured me on James and Eric's youtube content. Reysu content already felt a bit repetitive/inconsequential to me, but I had been watching James's various channels for years at that point, and while they were low production quality and pretty random, I always enjoyed the cozy vibes and niche knowledge he shared. It is sad but also funny to see these two proponents of productivity frameworks and modern grind culture fail at creating something real. Of course, I respect their ambition in giving it a go, but I can't help but feel it was half-assed. It seems they've both retreated to easy money, with James suddenly making more videos, now with sponsors, and Eric continuing to do the same (his last video, which is only 11:25 long, has a 3:30 sponsored segment! That's almost 1/3 of the video just being an ad!)
I have no real conclusion to make here, besides I do earnestly hope doko comes back, or we at least get some kind of closure regarding its end. Ideally, it would be cool for them to open source their code and maybe have a community member (maybe even me!) try to continue their work. I would also really love to see them refund the doko+ supporters.
---------------------------------------------------------------- update nov 07 2025Hilariously, the same day I've posted this, I've also found hope! In the latest video on the james vinh scholz channel, a folder titled "doko" is spotted on James's desktop, and he shows himself reuniting with Eric to celebrate his birthday. Still no explicit mention of the project, but it's enough to keep me interested for now. Hoping for the best!
Also, I realize I may be missing a lot of context from James's livestreams. I'm not sure what the content is like, but it is possible he's discussed/been working on doko during them. In the video today, it seems like he spent his last livestream studying rather than coding though, so alas, I guess this is unlikely.
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