Why I am not premium user anymore

[mgsxx 16]

I noticed that Evernote upped up monthly limit for premium users from 1Gb to 4Gb. I laughed out loud.

It's like "hey, here's our nice new shiny shovel, and now you can dig strait to the Earth core!"

 

"Remember everything"? Well, only if your everything is quite small.

 

Evernote client for Windows simply freezes and become unusable when the client database grows to about 10 Gb.

So why the ... I would need more data? To kill the app dead completely?

 

On my main home PC I amend the problem by relocating the database to SSD. Maybe with SSD it can grow to more than 10 Gb.

I will never find out because Evernote is installed other 4 PCs I use and on them there is no SSD, and Evernote is not very usable

on them already.

 

Last year Evernote said: "Yes, our software is not so good as it should be but we will make it better".

Apparently this making will take more than a year at least. Well, for now and foreseeable future that piece of

software called "Evernote Client" does not worth my money.

 

And it's not all about space. If a file is in Evernote, it's hard to access it from anything but Evernote. If it's in Dropbox, it's very easy

to access it from anything and everywhere.

 

I live now and not in some distant bright future. So I migrated most of Evernote contents, especially files and photos, from Evernote to other solutions.

Mostly text notes and web clips are left. 

 

My yearly subscription expired this month. And I've got to thinking, do I need to prolong it. 

And I realised, that now, when I ceased to "remember everything" in Evernote, I do not.

 

Text notes? 60Mb per month is usually enough. If not, it will be cheaper to pay $5 once or twice a year.

 

Premium features? They mostly fall in one of these groups:

• Ones that I could easily live without (passcode)
• Ones that looks nice on paper but are completely useless (related notes)
• Ones that are good in principle but so badly carried out that I do not use them (editable shared notebooks)
• Ones that I would miss, but even together they IMO don't worth $45 a year (notes sync on iOS)

So I quit.

 

While Evernote fails its promise to remember everything they will fail to get my pay.

 

...is it forever?

[gazumped 11,661]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,  but as I sit here my database is 13GB and still growing,  and while Evernote does have its frustrations,  it still does the job for me.  But you're totally right;  whatever works for you is the correct route to follow.

 

There are folks who've had the freezing problem and seem to have fixed it,  and I don't understand your comment about files in Evernote only being accessible from Evernote.  I attach a range of files to my notes from mindmaps to Word documents and use them with their original applications on various laptops,  mobiles and desktops.

 

The one major advantage you're losing with the end of your premium subscription is individual tech support.  Although we're happy to do what we can in the forums here,  and there are some very experienced users who've seen and fixed a lot of problems,  the one thing we lack is access to the server.  Evernote's tech support for free users is now:

• Continually improving Community, guide, and self-help (knowledge base) resources
• Support from our agents for login/account access issues
• Support from our agents for payment issues
• Ability to report bugs to our developers (although we will only reply if more information is needed to identify the bug)

(https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/51807-best-practices-submitting-a-support-ticket/ for the full details)

 

Premium users,  on the other hand get,  get email support and a chat option,  which can come in very handy if you're suddenly stuck for a solution.

[mgsxx 16]

There are folks who've had the freezing problem and seem to have fixed it, 

Good for them. It seems.

Do you imply I'm just a lazy stupid bum who can't configure (unconfigurable by design) Evernote client engine?

Or maybe you want me to vaccum Evernote sqlite database file every morning?

 

Jokes aside here is my opinion as a programmer: Evernote client for Windows SUCKS. From the app behavior some design decisions are obvious and they are not a hallmark of good programming. In any really good app UI must always be responsive. Always.

 

I don't understand your comment about files in Evernote only being accessible from Evernote.  I attach a range of files to my notes from mindmaps to Word documents and use them with their original applications on various laptops,  mobiles and desktops.

I didn't say "only" (it's true for iOS though), I said "hard". Attachments have no local links by itself and no (stable) file path either. It's quite limiting. Compare it with Dropbox where files are files. Legitimate files are much easier to integrate into other apps and workflows than attachments that are only accessible indirectly via a note link.

 

 

The one major advantage you're losing with the end of your premium subscription is individual tech support. 

I don't need this.

 

Btw, about reporting bugs to Evernote: based on my experience it's complete waste of time. I ceased to report bugs long time ago. It seems Evernote does not really value this kind of feedback.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I am among one of the long time, big time Evernote users who is migrating away.  I have chronicled my issues on the board in a few other threads (search on 'duet', if you are so inclined.)  I had the same reaction you did, when I heard about the increased upload limit - a LOL/WTF moment.  I wondered why so much had been going so horribly wrong with EN in recent months & the increased upload limit was a bit like someone intentionally breaking your legs and then giving you $100 for your trouble. (That may be a bit extreme...maybe.)  I used to have over 64,000 notes in my main account & several thousand in my duet account.  I'm in the process of moving them out b/c my main account is totally unusable on either the Windows desktop or the iOS app (iPhone & iPad).  I had a workaround (the duet account) that worked for about a year & I would have stayed with that except that the shared notebooks started not working as they originally did.  Then they fixed it after several months, but then they got screwed up again a few weeks later.  Then they temporarily removed all shared notebooks, then brought them back.  Yada, yada, yada.  So when I started having to use workarounds for my workarounds that were required b/c the app didn't work as it should, in the first place combined with the divorcing of EN from much of its client base (that has been evident in the past about six months), I decided EN is no longer the app/company for me.  It's a darned shame, too b/c EN (when it worked) was the most amazing product, IMO.  I'm migrating to Onenote, which is the second best option for me out there.  But it's not as great as Evernote (was.) 

[mgsxx 16]

For the past few weeks I've got constantly nagged by Evernote: get back to premium! I've got a special email. After that all my clients whined "get back to paying please". And now I've got "you used more than half of quote - become premium" - again from all my clients... It's damn annoying. When shared notebooks got broken I've got no letter from Evernote. They seems to care only to get my money but not to provide what was payed for. They not in the least care WHY I'm not a premium user, they just "want me back". Why there is no checkbox anywhere "do not nag me again about Premium cause I don't need it"? Because they don't care about you being nagged and annoyed. Like they don't care when you can't use their apps.

 

It's very shortsighted policy IMHO. In not that long run it can happen that only housewives with 100 notes and salesman will be all the customers that left. Because everybody who tried to use Evernote with heavy load (e.g. serious users who will be happy to pay for the service) will surely find out all the shortcomings. And that there is NOTHING about these shortcomings in Evernote blog or whatever official source. There is only angry post all over the forum. Official site does not ever gets tired of singing that Evernote is totally and completely great for anything an everyone. Liars. The most ugly thing about 4 Gb per month is a very clear implication that Evernote is designed with such load in mind - 48+Gb a year. It's a complete and utter lie. And there is nowhere a word on the official site that you are limited to 100.000 notes per account anyway.

 

That's why I've got angry. I feel I was fooled. "Remember Everything"? Bullshit. I loaded gigabytes upon gigabytes of notes paying $5 and more a month. When I found out the result is nearly impossible to use I've deleted everything. Nobody got to notice. Nobody cared about my lost money and time. And when I quit premium all they wanted to notice was that they didn't get money from me anymore. Nobody wants to ask "Tell us why you leave? Tell us what's wrong with our service?" Nope! I hear "we need your money and don't care about anything else". Repeatedly.

 

They simply do not care about serious customers leaving.

 

I'm beginning to think about ceasing to use Evernote entirely and going to Onenote or whatever. Maybe I'll return to my personal wiki I was using for note taking before Evernote. And Dropbox have never failed me yet.

 

I do not believe in Evernote future.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I noticed that Evernote upped up monthly limit for premium users from 1Gb to 4Gb. I laughed out loud.

It's like "hey, here's our nice new shiny shovel, and now you can dig strait to the Earth core!"

 

"Remember everything"? Well, only if your everything is quite small.

 

Evernote client for Windows simply freezes and become unusable when the client database grows to about 10 Gb.

So why the ... I would need more data? To kill the app dead completely?

 

There are quite a few Evernote users with large accounts that are experiencing major problems.

There are also many users who are suffering major performance issues, even though their accounts are not that large.

Yes, Evernote and others have developed some temporary fixes, which often need to be repeated.

 

Here is another thread where a  number of users have voiced their complaints and concerns:

Power User Discontent

 

 

So, I agree that while it is nice to have the increased upload limit to 4GB, that is of little value if Evernote can't handle larger accounts.  

[CalS 5,280]

My interest is piqued as to some of the specifics of these use cases, so I don't go there.  I have a 15GB data base and 26k notes of which 16k are PDFs, so not huge, but not small.  I also have virtually instantaneous response time on the current Windows version of EN under Windows 7 Professional.  Doesn't seem like I should from all of reports in the forum.  

 

As I type this I guess I'm not looking for an answer, just voicing an opinion of the strangeess  of this.  Wondering what combination of somethings causes the problem.  I'm used to software mostly providing repeatable results, you do x and y happens.  Anyway, shame EN doesn't appear to share the same interest.  

[jbenson2 2,147]

My Evernote problems started appearing when I hit 30,000 notes about 9 months ago. Evernote Support suggested I create a 2nd Premium account and split my notes. That did not solve the "Not Responding" problem. A 2nd tier support stepped in and suggested a variety of other solutions. 

 

I have broached this subject before - I wonder if Evernote actively maintains a few large Windows & Mac databases for internal quality control testing purposes on each upgrade. For example: 75,000 notes with several hundred tags and a lot of notebooks containing various PDF, TXT, DOC, and XLS files.

 

Or do they rely on their users for feedback on Evernote limits?

[mgsxx 16]

 Evernote Support suggested I create a 2nd Premium account and split my notes.

 

Nice one. Their software does not work as it should so you have to pay twice over. Simply gorgeous.

[CalS 5,280]

Thanks, Jbenson.  I'll keep an eye on things as I approach 30,000.  Seems it should be more than just note and tag count though....

[mgsxx 16]

Most Internet companies would build better things and create more value if they paid more attention to depth than breadth.

I home somebody in Evernote would read the article.