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

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131–140 of 869 posts

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

#131
post #46
post #7

I wonder how that 100 year guarantee is holding up? https://longnow.org/ideas/evernote-and-the-100-year-data-gua...

>Evernote CEO Phil Libin announced at the recent Le Web London conference that the company will soon set up a protected fund and include a legally binding guaratee that users’ data will be maintained for 100 years That almost sounds like a threat to commit a crime in certain jurisdictions. A lot has changed regarding how we talk about data in the last decade.

Is it a threat to commit a crime if it was posted before the law existed?

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

#132
post #47
post #34

Personal journey: I used to be a heavy user of Evernote, but encountered a bug that the developers were not keen on fixing promptly. It was then that I realized the importance of personal notes surviving beyond companies, apps, and formats. Quickly after, I switched to a collection of plain text files using org-mode markdown and have been happy ever since.

I've been doing the same for the past few years, but have yet to figure out a good way to sync things between my devices. Not that it bothers me too much, but sometimes I'd like to have that convenience.

I'm syncing between my devices with Resilio sync

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

#133
post #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.

Open source is not a cure-all you know. I prefer to pay for quality software than spend countless hours trying to compile a thing someone abandoned years ago.

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

#134
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Evernote CEO Phil Libin announced at the recent Le Web London conference that the company will soon set up a protected fund and include a legally binding guaratee that users’ data will be maintained for 100 years That almost sounds like a threat to commit a crime in certain jurisdictions. A lot has changed regarding how we talk about data in the last decade.

Is it a threat to commit a crime if it was posted before the law existed?

Exactly. Retrospective laws like that would face stiff opposition.

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

#135

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…

Also Obsidian is a small team (< 5 people IIRC?) and they don't have to monetize as aggressively to make back the money that VCs have funded them with.

They created a very robust platform based on a cross-platform framework (electron) with a healthy stable of open source add ons, and held off n a major release for some time. They really only need to water and feed it from there.

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

#136
post #34

Personal journey: I used to be a heavy user of Evernote, but encountered a bug that the developers were not keen on fixing promptly. It was then that I realized the importance of personal notes surviving beyond companies, apps, and formats. Quickly after, I switched to a collection of plain text files using org-mode markdown and have been happy ever since.

A tad similar story with my experience.

“Plain text is a powerful universal tool that is almost zero cost, work across platforms, are light enough to work remotely over poor connections, doesn’t go out of date, and is quick to learn.”

https://brajeshwar.com/2022/plain-text/

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

#137
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess I'll just switch to a new notebook application again if that happens. Very few of these notes are useful for long.

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

#138
I like to bring up my personal opinion and realization of owning an open format -- plain-text - content for your life-long textual contents.

I was once an Evernote user since its early days and a premium subscriber for many years. I have used many notetaking apps and bought enough of them – iA Writer, ByWord, Bear, SimpleNote, nvAlt fork of Notational Velocity, etc.

I have moved to a simpler notetaking and writing habit for my notes. I have chosen a simple plain-text life. The idea is to approach contents as data-first with tools on the top. I have grown to like the simple methods I use and the philosophies of managing the files and the directories/folders.

I wrote about it sometime back - https://brajeshwar.com/2022/plain-text/

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

#139

And to think that at one point Evernote was THE note taking app. So much wasted potential.

On the other hand, it should be possible for software to be done. I have never used Evernote, but I am not sure how much innovation is required in the note-taking space.

> it should be possible for software to be done

Not if you ask product managers

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

#140
Even though Evernote is a competitor, it's still sad to see such a giant in the note-taking space go down so badly. Of course, I am still skeptical about this news and whether its actually true since no source has been linked.

Aside:

I work (and lead the development) on Notesnook, an end-to-end encrypted, open source alternative to Evernote. Since we are based in Pakistan, our pricing has been really competitive at just $4.49/mo (compared to $17.99/mo of Evernote). And best of all, we have one of the best Evernote Importers around: https://importer.notesnook.com/

If you'd like to learn more about Notesnook: https://notesnook.com/

Feel free to ask me any and all questions!

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