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The Evernote Kerfuffle Continues

Evernote's recent price increase, and the more controversial restriction of Free Basic users to just two devices, has caused an uproar online.

 Evernote's Forum thread on this topic has already reached 93 pages.

 Most free dissatisfied Free users are taking great umbrage, feeling betrayed by a company they have yet to pay a dime to.

And some paying customers have legitimate concerns over a pretty big increase for Premium Level from $50 to $70 annually.

 Many have been casting about for alternatives, and many of pledged to take their ball, er notes, and  leave for greener pastures. They usually mean Microsoft's OneNote.

 The free users objection to a two device limit apparently is many use Evernote on their home PC, their phone and their office PC.

They have not been assuaged by the fact the rather robust Evernote Web Client does not count against the two client limit.

 And the limit is not truly two devices, but two simultaneously logged in clients.  A free Basic user could log out Evernote from their Home PC, and login at their work PC when they get in.

 If they forget to do that, they could log off their phone client while using the Evernote client at work.  Sure, it is a bit of a pain, but a free Basic plan of any service has to offer both value to get you to use the service, and Evernote does that in spades, and yet have some desirable features available only to paying customers. A little friction is a motivator. When I was on Basic service I often bumped up against the 60 megabyte monthly upload limit.  That motivated me to move up to a paid tier.  The client limit is meant to do the same.

 Most of the people threatening to flee Evernote plan on going to Microsoft's Onenote.  You would think Lisa Schmeiser, Editor in Chief of Supersite for Windows, a site covering almost exclusively Microsoft, would be all for that.  Yet today, she published a great read entitled "Why I'm Not Ditching Evernote Just Yet".

 His view parallels some thinking I have had recently.  Migrating to OneNote, learning to use OneNote, adjusting to the features you will leave behind, understanding perhaps any new features you gain, will all take time.

 Do you pay to have your lawn mowed or the oil changed in  your car?  You could do all those things yourself, but it is worth paying someone to save you a bit of time.

 Paying a little to keep what you like about Evernote is worthwhile in my opinion.

 Maybe it is not to you.  So be it.  Move on.

 Schmeiser summarized:
Evernote saves me time. And right now, I'm okay with paying $70 a year for a product with a proven record as a useful tool. If Evernote ceases to be useful to me, I'll reassess. But for now, the $20 price hike is a lower cost than the time I'd sink into learning how to re-do everything. There's a reason for the saying "time is money." I want one. I'm willing to spend the other. 


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