Evernote started the mission to be used for free, then what happened now?

[Onkyo 1]

Evernote keeps adding more and more restrictions on the free use of the app. But Evernote started the mission for uses to use it for free, remember? I just cannot believe how bad it has turned into.

[PinkElephant 8,394]

Nothing is wrong with asking users to contribute what they use.

Bad are users that think otherwise. Because in effect they don’t ask EN to keep the service free.

They ask their fellow users to foot their bill !

So, tell me: Why should my subscription fees be used to pay for your freeloading ?

[Onkyo 1]

25 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Nothing is wrong with asking users to contribute what they use.

Bad are users that think otherwise. Because in effect they don’t ask EN to keep the service free.

They ask their fellow users to foot their bill !

So, tell me: Why should my subscription fees be used to pay for your freeloading ?

freeloading? I follow the rules to use it free, as I wished. I did not violate Evernote's any new rule. Why am I all of sudden a freeloader? Do you have any basic logic sense? Did you even go to college?

[gazumped 11,830]

There's a famous saying:  "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".  Meaning that if you're offered something for free it is with the intention that if you like it,  you'll upgrade to a subscription.  Either that or the provider has found some other way of making money from your presence like selling your email address.  Which Evernote do not.  It's... unrealistic... to expect that a company will fund something completely for free out of the goodness of its heart. 

Since too many people used the 'free' service far longer and to a far greater extent than even the company expected,  restrictions were bought in too (hopefully) make it clear that it was a trial service only - intended only to allow users to try out features briefly before subscribing.

Sorry if that's inconvenient,  but if you wish to have full use of the service,  just subscribe.

[Onkyo 1]

7 minutes ago, gazumped said:

There's a famous saying:  "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".  Meaning that if you're offered something for free it is with the intention that if you like it,  you'll upgrade to a subscription.  Either that or the provider has found some other way of making money from your presence like selling your email address.  Which Evernote do not.  It's... unrealistic... to expect that a company will fund something completely for free out of the goodness of its heart. 

Since too many people used the 'free' service far longer and to a far greater extent than even the company expected,  restrictions were bought in too (hopefully) make it clear that it was a trial service only - intended only to allow users to try out features briefly before subscribing.

Sorry if that's inconvenient,  but if you wish to have full use of the service,  just subscribe.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I am by no means a heavy user of Evernote. I believe all the free users are not heavy users. So basically we do not want the full service, but slightly loose rules.

For me, I only created about 70 notes for the past 10 years, but all of a sudden I was told that I am only allowed to have one notebook and 50 notes at most.

I see lots of people have to switch to Joplin, etc, which is exactly what I would do.

Good luck to Evernote and the support from all those premium users. 

[mackid1993 1,053]

70 notes... Joplin is probably a better fit for your needs.

[PinkElephant 8,394]

50 minutes ago, Onkyo said:

freeloading? I follow the rules to use it free, as I wished. I did not violate Evernote's any new rule. Why am I all of sudden a freeloader? Do you have any basic logic sense? Did you even go to college?

If you made it to college, you were probably successful in avoiding math and business education. Got a degree with Ikebana and Moonlight Choreography ?

Move on to whatever suits your tightfisted economics. If you have trouble to extract your 70 notes just come back here, we will be pleased to help you OUT.

[mackid1993 1,053]

4 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If you made it to college, you were probably successful in avoiding math and business education. Got a degree with Ikebana and Moonlight Choreography ?

Move on to whatever suits your tightfisted economics. If you have trouble to extract your 70 notes just come back here, we will be pleased to help you OUT.

No need to feed the trolls with more trolling, come on man.

[PinkElephant 8,394]

Just wanted to be nice and help somebody leave for good. 🤷‍♂️

[Onkyo 1]

3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If you made it to college, you were probably successful in avoiding math and business education. Got a degree with Ikebana and Moonlight Choreography ?

Move on to whatever suits your tightfisted economics. If you have trouble to extract your 70 notes just come back here, we will be pleased to help you OUT.

I earned a doctorate of philosophy, worked three years as a post-doctoral, and now working on a national lab, paying mortgages for a 1.4 M house and an 800 K APT. For someone who had 26K+ posts on Evernote and mostly just blamed other users, this is not a life you can imagine. I understand.

For a few tens of dollars of subscription fee? No problem. For Evernote, no! Period.

[Onkyo 1]

9 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Just wanted to be nice and help somebody leave for good. 🤷‍♂️

"wanted to be nice"? You must have a serious misunderstanding of this word. Get a life!  

[PinkElephant 8,394]

Now I'm slightly impressed.

Tell me: What went wrong that you can't afford that punny subscription and need help from us underlings ?

Just wondering .... 🤔

[Onkyo 1]

42 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Now I'm slightly impressed.

Tell me: What went wrong that you can't afford that punny subscription and need help from us underlings ?

Just wondering .... 🤔

it is not about the money for a subscription, whether less or more. It is the company that I do not trust anymore. 

BTW: from which part did you get the sense that I need help from you? I posted under "general discussions", did I say I need help anyway?

This just proves exactly what I guessed -- you do not have a logical sense. So I suggest you get an education somewhere, instead of posting here all the time for many years. Evernote will NOT hire you of course.

[PinkElephant 8,394]

You take our help every minute, just without asking. Data storage: Paid. Software availability: Paid. Developers resources: Paid.

Everything EN does, owns and operates was build with subscribers money. Obviously you lack the simple reasoning to make this point, then think about your own (ab)use model, and make the connection.

You don't give, and just take. It is very easy to see that with 100% of users like you, there would be zero service for us to use.

So I can only applaud at the decision to make Free a trial plan, and eject users who want more without contributing. We all can do without your kind.

[Onkyo 1]

1 minute ago, PinkElephant said:

You take our help every minute, just without asking. Data storage: Paid. Software availability: Paid. Developers resources: Paid.

Everything EN does, owns and operates was build with subscribers money. Obviously you lack the simple reasoning to make this point, then think about your own (ab)use model, and make the connection.

You don't give, and just take. It is very easy to see that with 100% of users like you, there would be zero service for us to use.

So I can only applaud at the decision to make Free a trial plan, and eject users who want more without contributing. We all can do without your kind.

I am going to ask you one more time, at which point EN mentioned the free use is a "trial"? I don't remember seeing such a word while EN started! 

Why people would give money to EN, such a low company that changes its policy all the time? Especially, it is your free wish to be subscribed or not, you cannot force others. You cannot blame other free users for taking advantage of your money! The money you paid is only to guarantee YOUR full service, and it is not to entitle you to blame others, or call others "freeloaders". Understand? What you paid is purely for your OWN benefit!

The company can blame the free users keep using it for free, but you are NOT the one to say that certainly, understand? Other than high-end users of EN, you do not speak for EN and you do not represent EN.  So watch your mouth, and mind your own business. If you feel tired of answering questions, please stop doing so. Nobody asks you, and nobody forces you here. You think you are helping others, but actually no. Leave your fantasies, find a decent job, and contribute to society properly. Oh, more importantly, get an education, seriously.

For your records, I donated to Wiki every year between $400-900 for the past 7 years. What about you?

Google started Gmail service for free. Did you see Google stop providing Gmail unless users pay? For god's sake please have some basic logical thinking.

Stop replying. The national lab did not pay me to argue with you.

[PinkElephant 8,394]

So many words - who needs them has a reason.

Exactly - I don't represent EN. So it's free speech and opinion, not like support who needs to put a happy face on everything.

If you feel EN Free is NOT meant to be a trial now, and made to use it long term without paying, feel free (lol) to do so. But stop complaining about plan changes - you are no customer, you are just a user. No payment, no contract, conditions may change every day without notice.

EN keeps your data (yes, even YOUR data) private. So they need users to pay for the service.

With Google you pay with your data. You can ignore it, but actually with any Google service you are not the customer, you are the product. They build your profile from every bit of information you allow them to grab, they auction it to the highest bidder, and they sell access to your attention. "Free" as it can possibly be (so educated but so ignorant, eh ?).

But now, back to lurking at the national lab 🫡

[s2sailor 2,351]

I really dislike the term freeloading.  It is unnecessarily trolling.  The fact is Evernote offered a valid free plan and those who took advantage of that were not freeloaders.  It is also true that Evernote hoped many of them would eventually convert to a paid plan.  The free plan was too good and that never happened, and the continuing of the free plan was not sustainable for the business so it was shut down.  Evernote is not Google.  They are a one product company and the costs of the free plan were coming from subscribers, not some other source of income.  If Evernote is to remain viable, the free plan needed to end.  The remaining "free" plan is a trial only.

 

[gazumped 11,830]

Wow - I step away from the screen for a few hours and the discussion gets really spicy.  Can I remind everyone that we're supposed to be restricting comments to  dealing with technical issues and not trolling each other?  Please stick to facts in replies rather than unwanted opinions,  and if you get trolled by one or more users - please don't troll back.  Just walk away.

[DreamWeaver2500 24]

Quote

However, existing users who currently have more than fifty notes and one notebook will still be able to view, edit, export, share, and delete their existing notes and notebooks. 

First of all, I am sorry this issue has turned contentious. I understand what the experts who posted on this thread are driving at, the fact that the company's current owners want Evernote free to be a trial version only with the goal of moving to a paid subscription.

I'm not here to attack or defend anyone. However, as an Evernote user for many years, the product represented itself as having a free version with no suggestion of it being  trial version, nor did it ask for money.

As such, I used the service ... and I kept many notes.  I 'm sorry if some people here think that makes me an evil person. Now that I understand the philosophy of the new owners, I would just like to be able to get INTO Evernote for the purpose of saving some notes with highly personal information that I cannot replace, and then removing the balance of my notes from the site.

I have not been able to load Evernote on my Chromebook laptop for months now. I have posted in another forum and followed the suggestions of Pink Elephant and others. My Chromebook is up to date. I've cleared cache, cookies, and taken every other steps to get Evernote online to load. If I get a login it goes only as far as that screen or not even that screen loads.

I've used the email address to contact Evernote directly with no response.

Prior to this issue occurring I had changed to the latest version of Evernote.

There were NO prior warnings that some people would be quietly locked out of their account.

My information needs to be retrieved and deleted from Evernote, that is all I am asking. That would benefit Evernote as well, as it would not need to hold hundreds of useless notes on its servers. I do not want anything more from Evernote than the ability to remove my notes from my account which appears to have been quietly locked with no prior notice.

I know the volunteers on this website can't do anything, but if someone with the capability of unlocking locked accounts could see this post and DO SOMETHING HELPFUL -- besides denying that this is happening -- it would be most appreciated.

 

Thank you.

 

[gazumped 11,830]

59 minutes ago, DreamWeaver2500 said:

I do not want anything more from Evernote than the ability to remove my notes

It's unknown how Evernote makes its count of the number of devices connected to the account - sometimes one device can be counted as connected more than once,  and the web access also counts as a 'device' in this context.  Once you have passed the limit though,  you only have two 'disconnect' attempts per month before the account is locked.  Once that happens,  the only choices are to wait out the month,  or to subscribe - possibly paying  (if you can) on a monthly basis,  and downgrading the account again after one month.

Some of the causes of login issues are described here - https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/sections/27876180170003-Login - and at the bottom of that page there's a 'submit a request' link.  I'd suggest you use that (also if you can) to raise your issue with Evernote -again.  There used to be a 'guest' option to get past any login requirement,  but that also has changed;  and free users (AFAIK) may not have access to Support here.  If that's the case you only options are to wait out the lock,  or to subscribe again,  however briefly.

Sorry we can't be more help,  but as you know we're only other users here...   

[DreamWeaver2500 24]

 

Quote

Once you have passed the limit though,  you only have two 'disconnect' attempts per month before the account is locked

Thank you Gazumped. For the record, I have not been notified of any lockout; have not in recent years used the website on more than two devices, certainly not in the past few months ... I don't believe my lockout pertains to multiple devices. 

I suspect it may be because of the number of notes I accumulated over the years.

If there is a way I can simply log in far enough to access a subscriber screen I'd be glad to do that for access in order to retrieve some of my notes and then delete all of my notes in Evernote and close my account.

I will follow your suggestions and thank you kindly for them.

[gazumped 11,830]

Just to note - I deleted a previous post here because - entirely by mistake I'm sure - the user had included a link to another unrelated website.  And most of it was generated by AI.  I hate that.