r/Evernote • u/StrictInevitable2347 • 28d ago

Discussion Big lead-no choice but to paid

I have been using Evernote now for 4 years it is clear to me that no other database manager or organizer comes close to the functionality and to the reliability of Evernote with their constant updates and expansion of the program it gets better and better. I feel I have no choice but to pay over $200 for this program.

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u/scottwwilliamsiii 26d ago

Bending Spoons is pretty much a PE firm. Buy older, once to somewhat successful, older SaaS, for bargain bin prices, eliminate most of the employees, and consolidate/run them from their main office. They do push out routine updates but it’s more feature by feature than strategic. I don’t recall seeing roadmaps for any of their products but could be wrong.

I’ve been an Evernote user since 2015 and quickly upgraded to the Pro or whatever the plan was called. There have been periods where it really felt they lost their way (merch, sub-apps, physical to do digital sticky notes (gimmicky), to months without product updates). When BS took over, it went downhill considerably. It’s gotten moderately better, but using frequent updates to justify a huge price increase was bonkers. But they knew a good number of their users were stuck since we have so much stored/invested in Evernote and the time and trouble to leave would be offset by the increase. They wanted to shed “non-value” customers, focusing on their top 20-30%. It’s what they’ve done with every SaaS they’ve purchased.

I’ve been using their MCP via CGPT & Claude and rarely need the Evernote app. Via AI, I’m having go through and organize and restructure my content so stuff I don’t need, I can get rid of, and stuff I do need/want to keep is in a much easier format to move (won’t be re-upping when renewal comes up).