Introducing... ads on Evernote

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So Evernote has introduced ads on its app. Besides a banner at the bottom, there is a short video when users are using. It has made me think of the free games apps like candy crush.

Currently it’s exclusive for free users, and there are options for personalised and non-personalised. Both are free. If you want to remove the ads, pay £2.49 weekly and you can get full features.

Yes, atm paid users are not affected, but your app has more codes to detect whether you are free users, generate the ads if you are, and most importantly there are surely tracking codes tracking your life just in case. So the app occupies more space inevitably on your device. But who knows they will extend to some paid users like what Netflix is doing, resulting in more affordable option but more expensive if you want total ad free.

You did it, well done, Bending Spoons.

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That’s just awful. Who wants something like that in a “professional” app?

I’m tired of being bombarded with ads at every turn. They are relentless, and in my estimation, increasingly stupid.

I stopped using Evernote years ago, and this only reinforces the many reasons I made that decision.

Yes, I realize you can turn off the ads, for a price. A high price, I might add. I know many people find significant value in Evernote, but I could never justify the steep subscription cost, and I certainly wouldn’t tolerate those intrusive ads.

Just my two cents and I’m keeping the rest of my spare change. :rofl:

Rant over. :slightly_smiling_face:

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They want to force people to pay, but free version is a good way for people to briefly experience how it works. Ads are really interrupting in this case, and I at first couldn’t find a way to turn off the video.

Yes, recurring payment is never the end. You will pay more and more endlessly. VSCO is one of them from one- time purchase to subscriptions to introducing one more tie.

But users of Evernote won’t mind. “I have no issues”, “you are the rant”, “Evernote has improved”. They have their own world!

According to their profile, Bending Spoons doesn’t want to make good apps. They keep acquiring apps even attempting to buy Obsidian (but failed). Endlessly. If one of their app can’t continue generating revenue, they may sell it to others (although this doesn’t happen yet).

A previous Evernote staff on Hacker News said Bending Spoons just continues what Ian Small’s era was working on. Obviously they fired all of the staff and slowly completed ending up “hundreds tasks done” per month which looks like they are doing so many things.

If the CEO of Bending Spoons stops using Evernote (he started since around 2012), or the CEO quits the company, Evernote will be ignored and remain like a simply money machine.

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They do—but that’s true of each of us, I suppose. :slightly_smiling_face:

I used Evernote extensively back in the day. It was my primary system for managing projects, documents, and tasks. But they lost their way, and they lost me. Today, the app has exorbitant subscription pricing or obnoxious ads.

There are very few apps or services I’m willing to pay a subscription for, only those that deliver something essential with no viable alternative or those for which I have no practical choice, such as iCloud storage. As a rule, I work hard to avoid ‘renting’ my tools. Over time, it’s a poor financial decision, much like leasing a car. It’s far better to pay for the car up front or pay it off within four years. No interest, no payments, no financial stress. The money not devoted to car payments or app subscriptions can be invested to work for you and given to those in need. Rather than spending, you are making money. :slightly_smiling_face:

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How long do you think we will be able to avoid subscriptions? Even Apple is depending on services for growth. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple Intelligence gets the iCloud treatment at some point. A little for free and $ for more.

IBM used to give away their software when you purchased their mainframes, etc. but they started unbundling it in the 70s. Then their main focus started changing from hardware manufacturing to software and consulting in the late 90’s. The same thing is happening again today, IMO, to PCs and Macs, etc.

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A fair question. As I said above, “or those for which I have no practical choice, such as iCloud storage.” There are some apps and services that I cannot avoid a subscription for. There may be more in the future. But, I will always strive to minimize them to the extent possible. :slightly_smiling_face:

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For subscription I still have Strava, iCloud (2TB), website and MUBI. Especially the last three are services they need costs to maintain 24/7. Strava, to a certain extent, is because they have their own servers which need to update public heat map immediately. Makes sense, and the services are not as bad as Evernote.

But I also pay for Meta Verified for some personal reasons.

I don’t subscribe any productivity apps except having a cloud storage. An app is a software focusing on making something easier or deal with certain problems in life. They can improve and fix bugs, but better not to evolve into something completely different from the beginning, like an app used for writing now becomes a task manager. Unless there is a big social change that the app has to have a big upgrade.

The reasons why I won’t subscribe productivity apps are they try to justify their price level by adding many unnecessary features or so-called improvements, ending up sacrificing the basic level of reliable app performance. Evernote is already an example. Although you can point out some apps with subscription are also stable (e.g. Bear), most one-time purchase apps are overall less risky.

Honestly Evernote does meet my needs but their app performance with introducing ads can be enough to drive me away. I rather use an app which is stable but without many features or convenience.

If Apple Notes becomes too buggy, I will end up just using iA Writer.

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Am so glad I stopped using Evernote several years ago (2016 to be precise when the iOS version of Scrivener was released). I hate ads.

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Ads are great for business :wink:

They motivated me to purchase a TiVo back in the day. And to subscribe to no ads versions of streaming media today.

But I rarely subscribe for more than one month each year. No one has a catalogue good enough to keep me subscribed year-round.

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I completely understand a need for apps to charge money in order to survive and also make a profit for a developer. (e.g. Bear note app - which I don’t/can’t use for just one config choice - has a pretty decent pricing and doesn’t do such shady/creepy things for free users either with limited features of course).

What I fail to understand is why one has waited this long to leave Evernote (with its history) :smile:

BendingSpoons is a PE firm of the apps world.

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With years of using people have been increasingly relying on the sets of functions, especially when we gradually use only one app for almost everything. Also, the app is locked in so you will have to export.

Life seems to be easier if we use only one app for all, but is literally easier when using different apps in different cases because no single apps can fit in all cases in our life.

The same case will happen on Notion when they at the beginning were making an app for everything.

I am now using different apps. Besides Apple Notes I also use Pages and Freeform to do what Apple Notes can’t. iA Writer for writing. Reminders for tasks.

If one of the apps above goes worsened I will be less vulnerable.

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Back in 2013 when EN had around 80 million users, then CEO Phil Libin told allthingsd.com

“The longer you use it, the higher the perceived value gets. And the higher the perceived value, the more willing you’re willing to pay. It’s up to us to make something that you want to pay for. The percentage of people who pay in the first month is like one half of one percent. But if they use it for a year, that goes up to seven percent. In the second year, it goes up to 11 percent. Our oldest cohort, the people who have been with us five years or so, it goes up to 25 percent.”

I guess that’s still true. From what I’ve read Evernote is apparently still very popular. Earlier this year, Tiago Forte posted “I hit 8,000 notes in 400 notebooks in Evernote”

Edit:

The link to x.com appears flaky. Here’s TF’s post.

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I fail to see the reason of the backlash against Evernote here. It’s basically doing an ad-based freemium model, exactly the same as Google does with all their free stuff and a million other companies and publishers in the Internet!

I use Evernote because I have a grandfathered license that is pretty cheap, and I will sadly leave EN when this subscription stops working – I don’t think I’d pay the full subscription price because I basically use it as a digital dumpster of stuff that I already have in my main system.

The thing is there is some beauty to the simplicity of Evernote: just put stuff in, it will find it when you need it!. My wife loves it, and she uses it to organize all types of information there from recipes to gym videos, travel plans, receipt scans…

So when I ask “Where did you leave the car revision bill?” the answer is usually “It’s in Evernote”. And there it is so I can download it and organize it in my way.

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I’m not sure I’ll be able to articulate my point of view on this successfully, but I’ll give it a shot.

I remember being a kid in school - like maybe 12 or 13. There would be times throughout the year where the class would decide they’re going to scrutinize the words and actions of a particular student. Maybe something they did triggered it, maybe they were overheard saying something strange – but the class got wind of it and it became the thing that consumed the class for a time. Maybe a week, maybe a day - whatever.

With that kind of focus on a person, anything they said or did would be blown up and out of proportion.

“I like the tomatoes in this soup”.
“WHAT! OMG! Did you just hear what So-and-So said? They LIKE TOMATOES! AH HAHA”.

I feel like Evernote is that kid who slipped up right now. They did mess up a few years ago. But people are so keen to hate on them, misinformation and quick judgements flow.

It’s not entirely undeserved. But it’s there.

In this very thread there are comments along the lines of “that’s a lot of money for a subscription to see ads”. I don’t see ads. Ever. Never have. With a subscription, you don’t see ads. And like @pantulis mentioned - a free service containing ads; this isn’t uncommon practice.

Also on this forum are comments like “it’s a roach hotel” or “you’re locked in”.

I’ve never had an issue exporting entire notebooks (with over 100 notes) from Evernote, and I’ve done it multiple times. Works great. Clipper works great. It’s fast now.

It’s just - they did such a disservice to themselves by really going downhill with no direction for a while there – people make comments and assumptions based on what they read on forums by people who don’t actually use the software.

It’s cool to hate on Evernote. Whatever. I just went back. I’m not trying to shoehorn web clips into markdown, and I don’t need 20 plugins and a 4 hour Youtube tutorial to save all different kinds of audio/video, scraps, scans and scribbles. I’m also not paying hundreds of dollars on a course to learn Zettelkasten. So my promo with 60% off gets me up and running and working out of the box.

I use Obsidian at times too, it’s great. But not for the things Evernote is great at. :man_shrugging:t2:

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+1

One of the reasons I left EN was it was getting too expensive and I had the same ability to
“just put stuff in” and find it when I needed it from my cloud storage provider.

I never worried about my data because I verified I could export it as an .enex file, and import it into other programs, before I became a paying customer.

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If only Evernote had left premium paying subscribers grandfathered with the pricing who were with them for a long time. There are few lucky ones I guess but I was a premium subscriber for over a decade and more than the price the direction of the company and the changes to the app made me go the other way

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They did it wrong when everybody was praising them, with the wrong “enterprise” and “collaboration” features under VC pressure for growth. That was even before Ian Small days: he’s the tragic hero that tried to correct the ship course and ran out of money to arrive at the destination.

Bending Spoons are no saints that’s for sure, but I had expected worse. My only advice here for anyone still in the Evernote camp: pay close attention to the .enex export capabilities, design a migration plan and execute it once to see if it works.

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Bending Spoons just keeps buying apps, firing a lot of people, and this:

This is their focus. Improving things for customers is not. They also want to buy Obsidian, but Obsidian rejected selling.

Don’t say Evernote has improved because the app performance is still far from satisfactory as most apps can. But they are good at marketing what they did, like 100 improvements, 1 sec faster, 90% instead of 50% enjoying the speed…

As a productivity app developer, they obviously are not productive. Productivity is effectiveness. If app performance is a core issue, they should totally fix it in day 1, and let ALL users enjoy the great experience as what other apps do.

The aim of free version is to let users try and pay, but their ads with long period videos that you can’t stop can totally interrupt people to determine if they want to subscribe, and will end up deleting the app instead. Maybe Bending Spoons think it’s impossible for more new users so they want to squeeze more income through ads, or they lack money.

It’s not a good sign for a company.

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Evernote already has limitation on Free Plan with 1 Notebook and 50 Notes - so I don’t understand addition of Ads

My logic would be

  • If you have limitation in Free Plan - then Advertisements should not be there
  • If you don’t have limitations in Free Plan - then Advertisements make sense to cover costs

Regarding Evernote subscription cost, in India its less than half of what it is in USD

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Just for comparison for Notes apps prices in India

Evernote : USD 45.62 (INR 3999) per year
Noteplan : USD 68.44 (INR 5,900) Per year
Craft : USD 95.88 per year (No idea about INR price)
Obsidian Sync : USD 96 per year (No idea about INR price)

Not that I am complaining, but I find it interesting that one of the most expensive note taking app according to internet is actually one of the cheapest in India

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Their logic is to grab as much money as possible. It’s not just covering the cost.

I won’t be surprised if they have a new paid plan with ads like what Netflix did, which is cheaper than the current personal plan, while pushing up both prices of personal and professional.

Or they can even add ads to personal and professional too. They want to get BOTH! Why not?