With the announcement that Evernote’s new owners have laid off all US staff and are moving operations to Europe, the writing seems to be on the wall for the service in the short term.
Over the years, Evernote has lost features in a code re-write, jacked up prices, and curtailed the utility of it’s free offering by moving to Electron, making the once popular service less attractive.
My first Evernote note was in 2008, a photo and notes about Flying Dog Porter taken with my iPhone 3G. Evernote was one of the first iOS apps I ever downloaded and from the beginning, I was a heavy user. Early efforts included interesting companion apps like Evernote Food, something I used extensively on trips and special-occasion meals.
I had been grandfathered into a lower pricing tier for years and kept trying to use Evernote as before, but the desktop experience wasn’t as good, with performance issues and a lack of local caching. Which led me to look elsewhere and starting highlighting how little I was getting for the amount I was paying for Evernote. And, to be honest, there isn’t a one-for-one replacement for the Evernote experience, especially for someone who lives on many platforms (Windows, Mac, and iOS for me).
But, the main issue for Evernote I believe is that all this churn is making the alternatives conversation more visible and more active. People, like me, are re-evaluating the value of Evernote and finding that the value isn’t as good as something like Obsidian or Notion. It’s also highlighting the utility of an app that allows for quick displacement when that app decides to upend it’s user experience or raise prices. Will that be the end of Evernote? I hope not, but for now I’m sitting out their ecosystem until they, hopefully, look more stable and worthwhile of my time and money.