But they didn’t provide a paid service, AFAIK. They basically rented server space to store photos, and provided some filters and a comment function to their customers.
That money? Paid for their customer data, I would say.
Their business model? Unclear.
What I’m trying to say is that Evernote is trying to sell an actual product, and their customers would expect service. All year, worldwide.
So a dozen or two technical people and hundreds and hundreds of sales and admin folks? That actually seems to be how a lot of internet companies are structured. Twitter at one time had something like 3,000 employees which is absurd.
Honestly, for the majority of people, using Cloud services to sync files between computers is probably the best use case for such services. If you use Dropbox, say, to sync between two computers, then even if Dropbox takes a shit, or you lose Internet, you have access to your data on your computers. When you regain connectivity, it does a two way sync and you’re back in sync again. And it’s not like there’s some proprietary shit that makes it so that if you unsubscribe from Dropbox, you lose access to your files… you just lose access to the synchronizing service.
Compare that to using Evernote to store notes or Amazon to host your DNS records… if you leave the service, you have to copy your shit out manually (or use the scripted, possibly third party equivalent of copying it out manually).
Evernote has a few killer features for me.
Their web clipper is fantastic. Being able to find a web page, remove all the crud, and store that in a notebook is pretty useful.
Their text recognition is also great. I love being able to snap a photo of a whiteboard after a meeting and storing that with the notes I took during the meeting. Later, if I search for text, if will also search the text that was handwritten on the whiteboard.
Their search operators are pretty great. The metadata associated with notes (when it was created, where you were when it was created, etc…) is all searchable so if I’m looking in my recipe folder for the recipe I copied down when I was in Spain, I can find it.
I’m not sure if Dropbox can do all that stuff (although they are adding functionality all the time).
I’m addressing a specific use case here: which use of a Cloud service is least disrupted by termination or interruption of the service? And I’d say that using a Cloud-based file repository as a means of syncing two computers is least disrupted by this… you stop using the service, you can’t sync, but you have access to your data. If you lose connectivity, do you have access to your notes? And how hard is it to move from Evernote to OneNote? I’d say even discounting the feature mismatch, it’s a heckuva lot harder than moving sync services from Dropbox to OneDrive or Box.
Thanks for the input. I understand why you say what you do. TBH, though, I probably prefer a solution that automatically syncs locally without any intermediate stage/middleman. The cloud-in-the-middle method is just one more thing to wrangle/fail - as well as needing a guaranteed connection - and also brings a load of other functions I do not want or need, not being purpose-designed as a backup/sync solution. I suspect the Dropbox/Evernote way may need me to know which directories or files need syncing. My objective is to be able to pick up either machine (both live in the same house, on the same network or can be cable-connected if need be) and know they are identical as at the last point I synced them, simply by pressing a button on one or other of them every now and then. I need to investigate more to see if a cloud solution can deliver that. But I just came across Syncthing and it looks promising - need to research everything a bit more, I guess. Thanks again.
You’re not wrong. If you use Evernote primarily as a way to sync files then you should be doing as you say and move to Dropbox (or another sync service). For me and other Evernote users, file syncing is necessary but not sufficient.
For those that do use Evernote, I’d recommend making sure they have it installed on a Windows or Mac desktop. A copy of all content is stored locally and if the web service goes away, you will still have access to your notes and be able to use a tool to export the data to another service or format.
Haven’t used Syncthing… being used to all Mac business environments, I’ve traditionally used ChronoSync (for those times when you bring your laptop into the office and want it to sync with your desktop). It’s not the cheapest (although it is cheaper than a terabyte of Dropbox) but it’s fast and easy to use.
Thanks. I’ll take a look at ChronoSync.
Well, if you have actual customers (i.e. the “customer” isn’t the product you are selling, e.g. to advertisers), then you have to ensure the customers stay costumers.
In case of more than a million customers, this means either outsourcing or having quite some staff taking care of customers and their issues on every level.
Outsourcing is the thing. I’ll give you that. But nevertheless, you would need some in-house staff to be sustainable, IMO.
Maybe that’s the reason I don’t run a startup. …
I’d forgotten about Scriv’s Dropbox support. That makes a huge difference in pitting it against EN as a general note-taking app.
I don’t know how I’ve gone this long without being able to decide between Scriv and EN. I take both everywhere, and I back both up to my MacBook.
Something else featurewise that EN has: great support on the desktop for automation. Their AppleScript library is dead easy to use, and their Automator workflows are just as good. Several years ago I did some EN scripting (for my own needs), and it just worked. No workarounds or hacks needed. That’s rare 
You can also script EN using Workflow (which was just redesigned for iOS 12 and renamed to Shortcuts) on iOS. It’s similar to IFTTT, but I prefer Workflow/Shortcuts’ interface. It’s like EN vs. Scriv all over again.
Argh. Everscrivener. That’s what I need.
That’s it on the nose. Evernote took abandonware to a new, soaring, and professional level.
Oh, hey - check this out: An Engadget post on what EN done did wrong and why. My favorite part is where EN suggests that users of “Hello” move to Evernote because it’s “…an even more powerful way to manage your contacts.”
Mystery solved? Might they have dropped Hello to get you to subscribe to EN? I’m not typically a corporate-conspiracy type, but that was some dodgy stuff the Evernote people did.
Also, it’s cool you held on to an old copy of the recipe app. The things we do to preserve the stuff we like…
I remember using Evernote a lot in college and it was really useful for me. Once I started adulting and working regular hours, My usage of Evernote fell off. But I always randomly would go back to it every once in a while to gather notes and clip useful information on the web.
It would be disappointing for this service to shut off so hopefully they get it figured out.
Yeah after I checked and noticed that I had 4 duplicates of the same notes because of continual version mismatch errors I deleted it from my phone and decided to go back to emailing myself to-do lists. Meanwhile the web view plays really well with duplicates /s
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