IMHO the interesting part of this recurring discussion about PINs at the start and encryption is the following:
The people that ask for a function to lock Joplin by a PIN are always intending to have some additional security level for their notes on their device. And the questioners are users with little or no technical background mostly.
Most people answering to those questions here seem to come from the technical educated part of the community. And the answer is often the same: Encrypt your device or find a good password for the whole device, that’s the best solution to have it safe.
I’m reading here for some months, also backwards in time, and I have not found any other topic, that has been raised so many times.
Here is my view on that:
The answers are correct, but it seems to me that they do not solve the questions. People simply have different views on how to use their devices. As the asking people often allow family members or friends to use their devices occasionally (or any other colleague or boss), IT-professionals do not like do that or do not have to do that.
So for the first group it is consistent to try to keep some information on their device hidden or blocked for other users of the same device. For the second group, that is unnecessary. So the solution of the second group doesn’t fit the needs of the first group. And they won’t ever match as long as we do not cross that ditch.
I bet, this is a typical thing with open source projects that are also used by people that are not part of the community with a more technical background.