The reason Branch bought Nova is to use it for A/B testing and feedback (via Nova Discord), to test for things they could add in their other products.

One such feature is the new cards and search features. Nova doesn’t spy on you and they didn’t add ads, they just rely on the feedback given by the userbase.

Sadly they bow fired two employees whom, if I recall, handled support and PR. This means that the solo dev will have to do that too, which means slowdowns and less features in the future.