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Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

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Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#111
post #77

Obsidian.md for the win. I used to use evernote way back when they started, was cool software, then they started scaling and added worst search UI I have ever come across. That day, I deleted my account and went markdown with my own storage. Don't see the benefit of why your notes should be controlled by others.

I mostly use Google Keep, which works pretty well. Though the "clippings" feature saving Web articles is pretty cool and doesn't have much of an analogue with that product.

Just wait until they shut it down.

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#112
post #77

Obsidian.md for the win. I used to use evernote way back when they started, was cool software, then they started scaling and added worst search UI I have ever come across. That day, I deleted my account and went markdown with my own storage. Don't see the benefit of why your notes should be controlled by others.

It's not open source. If migrate from Evernote, at least it's better to migrate to FOSS. Sadly, most FOSS solutions lack mobile app support.

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#113

I invested $25,000 into buying secondary equity shares of Evernote about 1.5 years ago. In January, I got an exit check back for $120 bucks after the sale to Bending Spoon :/

Let me guess: options were going to expire?

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious: what's the problem you're trying to solve with Git plugin that the official Obsidian Sync [1] doesn't solve natively (besides cost)? I've been using Obsidian Sync for a year, and it works flawlessly for my use case. Is syncs not only notes, but also configuration, plugins, allows creation of multiple vaults, works on mobile, fine-grained control over which folders to sync in each device, and even a…

great to hear that it works, but it is hilariously expensive for what it does. When the price comes down to $3/month, I'll start paying for it. Until then, I'll use Syncthing for free.

I use syncthing. A lot. Best thing ever.

I used evernote a long while ago.

How can i bridge the divide between all devices between those too ? In a way that is cross-device and helps with notes/tags etc ?

I suspect you are keeping a specific folder of random files as your note taking location ?

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#115
post #35

I remember when Evernote launched and everyone was super hyped about it -- even some of the biggest VC names promoted them. Not to mention the funding they raised ($290M). It was literally iOS Notes on steroids. I even used it for awhile, but somehow it didn't stick. They hired bunch of great people and had some good backend tech -- sad to see this happen to them.

Didn't Evernote precede Notes? My understanding is that Evernote was the first "notes" app, but I'm old; I could be making shit up in my head.

Evernote preceeded the Iphone, the product was originally a non cloud small business that I think was sold/ spun off into a venture capital funded company.

Evernote is older than the Iphone.

I just checked and I found a review of Evernote 1.0 from 2007, but I think the product predated that review. I found a web site saying the first Evernote Beta was released in 2004. I remember using Evernote in grad school in 2008.

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#116

I feel like Evernote is a prime example of the pains of trying to convert free users to paying users for the same features, something we see in many VC funded software from its era. Once you give something away, it's damn near impossible to take it back, even if you plead your case as honestly as Evernote did. Evernote was great. Honestly, it was worth paying for. But they gave away the farm too early, and folks feel…

> Evernote is a prime example of the pains of trying to convert free users to paying users for the same features

I don't think so. They had plenty of paying customers. They claimed to be profitable for a long time (eg https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/evernote-rai...). They had trouble with (i) implementing big price hikes, and (ii) a poor, bug-filled user experience. While that was going on, they were facing increasing competition, yet they acting like a monopolist. OneNote, Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, Notion, and so on were providing a quality product at a better price. The lesson is one that many HN commenters would never accept. It's possible to set your price too high.

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#118
post #63
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already do this with Evernote in fact, it’s called “AI cleanup”. It’s not that good now but I like the idea of having an AI format everything cleanly

Do you like the idea of OpenAI logging all of your private notes for all time (and receiving a copyright sublicense for them from Evernote)?

Well I’m talking more generically when I said I like the idea. If you’re uploading your notes to a cloud service like Evernote, you should already be thinking about acceptable privacy policies.

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#119
post #38

I use Obsidian for note-taking, but Evernote for my "digital shoebox" of receipts, PDFs, photos of wine labels, insurance statements, etc. They are all quickly findable through a combination of OCR and tags. Does anyone have a good alternative for this use-case?

Evernote alternatives for your 'digital shoebox'/'paperless office'.

JOPLIN:

Browsing through alternativeto [1], seems that the obvious replacement for a hosted 'non-tech' offering is Joplin [2] - a free, open source direct evernote competitor which includes Evernote import feature and cloud syncing.

PAPERLESS-NGX:

For the whole paperless office, scan/store receipts and PDF paperwork, I've been seriously looking at Paperless-NGX [3]. Downside is that you need to sort out self-hosting. Upside it's free and looks amazing for achieving a 'paperless office'.

Found this on exporting from Evernote to Paperless-NGX [4], but its not definitive.

Has anyone done this already? Would love your advice. Demand is out there for someone to write up a good guide on this.

REFERENCES:

[1] Alternatives to Evernote - https://alternativeto.net/software/evernote

[2] Joplin Open Source Evernote Alternative - https://joplinapp.org

[3] Paperless-NGX (Selfhosted paperless office) - https://docs.paperless-ngx.com

[4] Discussion Evernote to Paperless-ngx - https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/120mmo1/evernot...

Re: Tell HN: Nearly all of Evernote’s remaining staff has been laid off

#120

I feel like Evernote is a prime example of the pains of trying to convert free users to paying users for the same features, something we see in many VC funded software from its era. Once you give something away, it's damn near impossible to take it back, even if you plead your case as honestly as Evernote did. Evernote was great. Honestly, it was worth paying for. But they gave away the farm too early, and folks feel…

But this also seems to be another case of tech companies trying to have it's cake and eat it too like the recent reddit debacle. The freemium model comes with trade-offs and businesses can't have it both ways. 'Free' users should be viewed as free marketing and advertising for generating paid users not as lost potential revenue.

No business using the freemium model should expect to magically convert the free users to paid users and still retain the popularity generated by the free users. You would think as many times as tech companies have that shot themselves in the foot like this our industry might stop attempting to do this. When does this actually work?

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