At least they’ll get great pizza! 
I might have stayed with Evernote if they added markdown support, plugin support (obsidian plugins make knowledge management tool infinitely expandable!) , and kept local files so that Spotlight could index them. I eat , drink , and sleep markdown for work and personal documentation, so that is a non-negotiable feature.
I also depend on Spotlight to find notes and documents, so loose files for documents is also non-negotiable.
Personally, I’m going the Obsidian and ( maybe ) DevonThink route, 2 apps that are really good at what they do. Evernote staff was always confrontational, even attacking people on their forums, when people recommended they add markdown support. They created bad blood between themselves and their customers, so I’m never going back.
Well I contacted Evernote and asked for a discount. They were obliging and offered 25% which I thought was excellent. However, they are struggling to apply it. The latest advice being, purchase at full price and have the 25% refunded.
With that struggle and the comments above, I’ll pass for now.
I think folks should use the right tool for them. But I was also thinking today about my resistance to paying a subscription fee for something like Craft, and realized it’s a hangover effect from watching Evernote crumble over the past ten years. Really fascinating the ripple effect things like this have for all of us.
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Hangovers can be a helpful warning sign that overindulgence is bad for you. Perhaps this can apply to subscriptions? 
As I noted here, I’m down to just a few subscriptions.
- Apple One Premier
- 1Password
- Backblaze (a new acquisition owing to the kind insistence of forum members)
- MS Office 365
- Ulysses
I’m seriously considering dropping Ulysses. I like Ulysses, but I’m not sure I need it. I’ve moved all of my writing out of Ulysses except for my book project. As an experiment, I’m running parallel versions of the book in Ulysses and Pages (I tried Scrivener again, but I don’t like using Dropbox for sync, and I don’t like Scrivener’s mobile app). I’m discovering that the outline feature in Pages works well, given that I use the styles feature selectively and consistently.
The short version of my thinking is that nearly all of my writing eventually ends up on my blog, as a formal report, or as presentation notes. None of these use cases require an intermediary markdown app. I can easily copy and paste from Pages to Squarespace. It works seamlessly, so I don’t need a markdown editor for the blog articles. As shown in this screenshot, I can use Pages directly for presentation notes by using the “Reading View” mode, which prevents accidental edits.
For distraction-free writing, I hide all toolbars and panels in Pages with two quick keyboard shortcuts. I get this, which is even less distracting than the markdown syntax that is visible in markdown editors:
If I drop Ulysses, I’m left with two subscriptions, which I consider utility subscriptions (Backblaze and 1Password). I’ll drop 1PW if Apple improves Keychain enough or makes Keychain a separate app. This leaves Office. This is paid for by work, so the Office 365 subscription “doesn’t count.” Apple Premier is also a “utility” subscription, in my view. My research files are in DEVONthink, which is a one-time payment.
For my needs, I’m finding I can get by just fine with very few subscriptions. The other advantage is that I have only a few apps to manage and master.
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My wife loves Ulysses. I think it’s a great piece of software. If they would add backlinks/wikilinks, I could use it for basically everything, and it would easily be my preferred app.
I’m OK with a Ulysses subscription because it’s so easy to get Markdown out of there. Craft wasn’t quite as simple (I had formatting errors when I played with their export tools).
Anyway, the direction Evernote is going feels like it should be a warning shot for the whole industry making things like note-taking apps. I don’t think these are billion dollar businesses worthy of IPOs, and I think that’s totally fine. Honestly, it would have been better for everybody if Evernote knew their limits before they started going crazy with physical products and everything circa 2013.
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I can really understand why markdown is so popular for this simple reason. It does make one consider what would happen if the apps we use daily became unaffordable or unavailable.
I agree. If I thought I needed to use markdown, I would continue to pay the subscription happily. Though at one point, I’d become convinced I needed markdown (mostly due to reading in this forum and listening to tech podcasts), and I posted comments accordingly, I’ve subsequently changed my mind. I don’t need markdown, which adds an unnecessary layer between my writing and the final output. This is based on my workflow needs and preferences. 
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Absolutely. That’s what it’s all about! I’m in the Markdown camp still (pretty firmly), but I’m also a web designer and developer. Interoperability is an area of professional interest for me.
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I am not sure if you are on beta ios/ipados17 yet, but if you are…as an apple notes user, have you tried the apple notes to pages integration? Am curious if you would find value in taking your initial notes that turn into more longform into pages?
Because all of my devices are daily drivers for my work, I don’t run betas, so I have no first-hand experience with iOS/iPad 17. However, I look forward to seeing how the new Notes feature may affect my workflow. At present, I’m not sure I understand how taking notes in Notes and then sending them to Pages will help me. I typically use Harvard numbering to outline my reports and presentations in Pages and then begin to fill in the content. But I’ll certainly try it out; I may surprise myself. 
Obsidian has just announced an importer for Evernote .enex files.
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Interesting. I wonder if it would be a good alternative to Yarle? That app has some good templating rules to control the format of the output files and location for the attachment files.
I’ve never got Yarle to work for me. It always errors out or gives me some error message. I’ve tried a few times.
As having moved back to Evernote last year, and enjoying its simplicity and functionality - I read an interesting thread on the high chance Bending Spoons are cutting costs, turning profit and should prepare for an exit of the app in the next couple of years. I wish there was a tool that functioned with a simple “email to this and it’ll scan everything and can be easily found when needed etc.” tool.
What Bending Spoons is doing, and why you should care (even if you are staying)
byu/jontseng inEvernote
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To add - I don’t mind the premium pricing, its the longevity that is a concern.
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The writer states:
I don’t have any privileged knowledge here, but I have a reasonable understanding of software business models.
Which makes this speculation. I wouldn’t base my future use of evernote on conjecture.
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I agree, but I also plan my exit strategy before I put effort and data into any software.
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This has me looking at alternatives again. I do get a bad “vibe” around the EN app, feeling like best case scenario; they jack the price into the stratosphere and worst case; they just bomb the app one day. I find it useful, but I have a hard time trusting what’s going on behind the scenes.
As I’ve specified on here countless times before, I DO use Obsidian for a lot of things, but I don’t find my EN use case to be something I can move to Obsidian. I am very visual and I like icons, colors, OCR, pen support etc. Obsidian is great, but it’s not a great digital junk drawer/scratch pad.
Anyway, Bear 2 looks great but no web interface is a downer. Craft is great, but it fights you a lot when you try to use local (iCloud storage) and they seem to be geared more towards teams now. Upnote is too small for my taste, Agenda looks okay but export options and future proof-ness (that’s a word!) seem dodgy to me.
All this to say, I’m worried but I think until I have a viable escape route planned, I’ve learned it’s better to just relax and chill out before making any rash decisions.
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