Evernote backtracks on unlimited storage for Premium tier; sets 10GB monthly limit

[Morticia 193]

Just read this on Twitter Evernote News
 
Evernote backtracks on unlimited storage for Premium tier; sets 10GB monthly limit
 

Jordan Novet August 11, 2015 5:47 PM

 

Note-taking app Evernote today announced that it’s rolling back unlimited storage for its Premium subscription tier of service, which first became available in late April. Going forward, Evernote Premium will be capped at 10 GB storage per month.
 
Before the April introduction of the $49.99/year Premium tier, Evernote’s paid service allowed users to store as much as 4 GB per month. And before that, the limit was 1 GB a month. So the unlimited storage option must have proved quite appetizing for some Evernote users. But Evernote was unpleasantly surprised by the consumer response to its offer.
 
“Unfortunately, ‘unlimited’ is such a powerful term that it ended up being both confusing and problematic. Almost instantly, people began using Evernote in a completely new way: mass file storage and backup,” Evernote vice president of marketing and brand Andrew Sinkov wrote in a blog post on the news today. Service quality went down, Sinkov wrote.
....
http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/11/evernote-backtracks-on-unlimited-storage-for-premium-tier-sets-10gb-monthly-limit/

[gazumped 11,652]

My beta desktop still says unlimited,  but my Android client now says I have 9.something GB left of my 10.  The information is on its way around - https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2015/08/11/finding-the-perfect-fit/

[Morticia 193]

My phone, tablet and Windows still tells me that it's unlimited data.

Probably because I can't log in and get updated

[Morticia 193]

Evernote clarifies top plan’s ‘unlimited’ storage: 10GB per month
Brittany Hillen - Aug 11, 2015

In April, Evernote introduced updated plans in the form of Plus and Premium, both of which come with a subscription fee and features commensurate with what each plan offers. The premium feature is targeted at Evernote power users — those who use it frequently, likely daily, and need ample space to do so. As such, Evernote announced that the premium plan offers “unlimited” storage, but users soon discovered that, as with buffets and mobile plans, there’s still a limit -- the company just didn’t anticipate you’d manage to hit it.

---
http://www.slashgear.com/evernote-clarifies-top-plans-unlimited-storage-10gb-per-month-11396465/

[Dusan 2]

This is going to be funny; lets see how many people are going to claim "end of the world" since they can only upload 10,000,000,000 notes now.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

This is the key:
 
Finding the Perfect Fit - Evernote Blog

We designed Evernote as a productivity service to allow you to create and keep your important work in one place. We’re your second brain, not your second hard drive.

The real issue here is once again Evernote made a marketing blunder with very poor communications.

 

They should have anticipated the response, and clearly stated in all communications what they just said above, plus they reserved the right to limit service if they detected sudden massive uploads indicative of using Evernote as a backup service.

 

Just my 2¢.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

OTOH, the new sheriff in town (new CEO) may have taken one look at the mess, and said "Are you crazy???  What else would you expect?  Pull that limit back now before we go bankrupt in my first month here."

 

All pure speculation.  Fun, but speculation.  Ah, to be a fly on the wall sometimes.    

[Metrodon 2,184]

This is my favourite bit

 

“Unfortunately, ‘unlimited’ is such a powerful term that it ended up being both confusing and problematic."

 

Unlimited isn't confusing at all, it means no limits. I'd guess that Evernote chose the wrong language or is being run with such a lack of foresight that they just never saw this coming. 

 

I think Mr Sinkov is pretty easily confused.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

This is my favourite bit

 

“Unfortunately, ‘unlimited’ is such a powerful term that it ended up being both confusing and problematic."

 

Unlimited isn't confusing at all, it means no limits. I'd guess that Evernote chose the wrong language or is being run with such a lack of foresight that they just never saw this coming. 

 

I think Mr Sinkov is pretty easily confused.

 

Yep. "Unlimited" pretty much means what it says, and to complain when people take you at your word, especially when you use phrases like "remember everything" or bill yourself as the place for "everything you do" invites trouble. They had problems with it from day one, and I don't think anyone is surprised that people took advantage of the service that was advertised. I wonder (about this and other decisions) how this went from being an idea to an actual feature without someone raising their hand and asking questions. 

 

Oh well. One thing worth noting is that Evernote (as always) is willing to refund people's money if they aren't satisfied. That's a great policy -- some (well, probably most, but we don't tend to comment on good stuff) of their decisions are good ones

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Without selective download, one would have been foolish to even attempt to consistently max out the previously formerly 4 GB monthly Premium upload limit. Forget about scaling problems... you're basically duplicating everything on your PC.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Without selective download, one would have been foolish to even attempt to consistently max out the previously formerly 4 GB monthly Premium upload limit. Forget about scaling problems... you're basically duplicating everything on your PC.

 

Yep. And, this is why it was a non-starter for me. What is the point of unlimited cloud storage if you are still being limited by the available storage on your computer? It's a problem Evernote has solved on mobile, but hasn't yet done on the desktop versions of Windows and OSX. 

[gbarry 2,658]

My beta desktop still says unlimited,  but my Android client now says I have 9.something GB left of my 10.  The information is on its way around - https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2015/08/11/finding-the-perfect-fit/

 

Gaz--the clients are going to be playing a bit of catch up because of submission times and the like, but web will reflect as of tonight's service release. Public Windows beta should already have it, and users in our iOS beta program should see it as well. 

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

 

The real issue here is once again Evernote made a marketing blunder with very poor communications.

 

They should have anticipated the response, and clearly stated in all communications what they just said above, plus they reserved the right to limit service if they detected sudden massive uploads indicative of using Evernote as a backup service.

 

Just my 2¢.

fully agree. "Unlimited" should never have been uttered if they weren't prepared to handle something approximating unlimited.

Their new proposed limit is perfectly reasonable, and as they say, should more than adequately serve over 99.999% of users. Though that may be, backtracking just looks bad, and smacks of carelessness. A marketing blunder indeed.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Without selective download, one would have been foolish to even attempt to consistently max out the previously formerly 4 GB monthly Premium upload limit. Forget about scaling problems... you're basically duplicating everything on your PC.

 

 

As an A/R-O/C personality...what's wrong with that???     Seriously though, for backing up important files on my personal computer(s), I've run the gamut from HP Colorado Trakker tape drives, to Ditto Zip drives, Jag Drives, CDs, DVDs, external drives and clouds.  My mantra has been a girl can never be too rich or have too many backups.  So although I didn't treat Evernote as a backup target, I did often include files that are duplicated on my hard drive.  IE, scans of bills, newsletters, personal letters sent/received, etc. In my case, when I used Evernote, due to the way I utilized the powerful Evernote search engine, it was FASTER for me to find a utility bill from three years ago in Evernote (like 5 seconds or less) rather than drilling down on my hard drive to drive/scans/bills/2012/utilities/FILE.  But then I ran into the dreaded scalability issue...and migrated away from Evernote.

 

But honestly, IMO, this is just one more thing that has caused me to lose (more) confidence in Evernote the company.  Surely the word 'unlimited' is very clear to most people and certainly to all for whom English is a first language.  The fact that "they" didn't anticipate this could/would be a possible reaction says to me that whoever was in charge of rolling this out was either a novice or Peter-Principled.  IMO, this qualifies as one of the dumbest missteps. 

 

JMO...

[Frank.dg 1,385]

"Unlimited" is also a cognate in many other languages...

[Morticia 193]

Has been 4 intense months.

Water leak from the apartment above mine (chaos is right description)   

First Evernote unlimited

And the automatic warning mail if the account has abnormal usage.

And no mail to Basic users (witch been a boomerang issue on the forum)

And nagging pop-ups about to write protections (many posts about that too)

And now backtracks to a limit max usage per month (I wonder if this is going to generate post, threads like the mail to Evernote did or do.)

 

PS My kitchen is back to normal. No extra ventilation costing a lot on the electric bill.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

glad to hear the water leak is solved

it's often not the what, but the how that causes problems. the ten gigabytes is reasonable, and so is the refund policy, but the implementation was atrocious, and so here we are again with poor communication, confusion, resentment, and lost confidence. it's totally unnecessary to be going through all of this, in my opinion.

i sure wish evernote would plan this stuff out, announce stuff ahead of time, document it, and then move forward (it only takes a few days or weeks -- i'm not saying we need years of advance notice) instead of rolling out half-baked changes first, announcing them after the fact, and then backtracking (this brings to mind the abandonment of the shared notebooks that happened about this time last year -- same melody, different lyrics).

anyhow, it seems like the wrinkles are getting ironed out, and it's nice to see the limits going up.

[enotetool 1]

This is the key:

 

Finding the Perfect Fit - Evernote Blog

We designed Evernote as a productivity service to allow you to create and keep your important work in one place. We’re your second brain, not your second hard drive.

The real issue here is once again Evernote made a marketing blunder with very poor communications.

 

They should have anticipated the response, and clearly stated in all communications what they just said above, plus they reserved the right to limit service if they detected sudden massive uploads indicative of using Evernote as a backup service.

 

Just my 2¢.

Wonder if the emails will stop now.  Received it once some time ago, and I doubt it hit or came near 10GB in that month.

[gbarry 2,658]

^^^ You should not receive any more usage emails. 

 

The desktop apps, at least, will have a friendly notification when you've hit the halfway mark, as well as one at the 10GB level. And the usage bar is of course available once more, so you can self manage your own upload rate. 

[eric99 978]

 

This is my favourite bit

 

“Unfortunately, ‘unlimited’ is such a powerful term that it ended up being both confusing and problematic."

 

Unlimited isn't confusing at all, it means no limits. I'd guess that Evernote chose the wrong language or is being run with such a lack of foresight that they just never saw this coming. 

 

I think Mr Sinkov is pretty easily confused.

 

Yep. "Unlimited" pretty much means what it says, and to complain when people take you at your word, especially when you use phrases like "remember everything" or bill yourself as the place for "everything you do" invites trouble. They had problems with it from day one, and I don't think anyone is surprised that people took advantage of the service that was advertised. I wonder (about this and other decisions) how this went from being an idea to an actual feature without someone raising their hand and asking questions. 

 

Oh well. One thing worth noting is that Evernote (as always) is willing to refund people's money if they aren't satisfied. That's a great policy -- some (well, probably most, but we don't tend to comment on good stuff) of their decisions are good ones

 

Yeah, "remember everything", meaning: find everything you ever saved.

And this requires a single access point, one search engine, for *all* data. This doesn't mean that the underlying cloud technology should store all data the same way, like evernote does today. Several cloud technologies may and should be used to achieve this.

Photo albums for instance may be stored differently, but still searchable using tags or other metadata.

In order to make life easier for the evernote infrastructure, hints might be provided by the note author to tell the system that archiving is sufficient or not.

 

And this is exactly what DropBox is working on: on top of their mass storage, they will provide an evernote alternative. This might be a serious threat for evernote...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

dropbox has no note app (yet), and it goes without saying that it lacks on offline one (necessary for those of us without 24/7 internet). dropbox is not unlimited. dropbox is only marginally more secure (encryption, but dropbox holds the keys).  these are some problems i see with the "threat" model. frankly, as much as i like dropbox (using it every day), it is way behind in this space (personal information management / notetaking). i'd say dropbox is under threat from the likes of microsoft or google, which offer far more storage, for far less, and they have well-developed note-taking capabilities. obviously, evernote is also under threat from them.

 

i don't know what will happen, though. personally, none of the three currently meet my needs. at any rate, you did raise an important issue for evernote -- can they continue to get away with neglecting multimedia (photo/video/music) management? these are not things i really need or want, but i imagine there are plenty of people who do. i guess their lack of emphasis on personal features for such things these days could be a result of them targeting businesses, where the multimedia element is less important. 

[Frank.dg 1,385]

dropbox has no note app (yet), and it goes without saying that it lacks on offline one (necessary for those of us without 24/7 internet). dropbox is not unlimited. dropbox is only marginally more secure (encryption, but dropbox holds the keys).  these are some problems i see with the "threat" model. frankly, as much as i like dropbox (using it every day), it is way behind in this space (personal information management / notetaking). i'd say dropbox is under threat from the likes of microsoft or google, which offer far more storage, for far less, and they have well-developed note-taking capabilities. obviously, evernote is also under threat from them.

 

i don't know what will happen, though. personally, none of the three currently meet my needs. at any rate, you did raise an important issue for evernote -- can they continue to get away with neglecting multimedia (photo/video/music) management? these are not things i really need or want, but i imagine there are plenty of people who do. i guess their lack of emphasis on personal features for such things these days could be a result of them targeting businesses, where the multimedia element is less important. 

 

Dropbox's note app is well underway. It's not speculation. And for most people, if they are not concerned about encrypted notebooks in Evernote, I doubt they're looking for the same with Dropbox. The threat model under discussion, I believe, whether people are being naive or not, will not be based on security. Dropbox is going to really eat into the market share here. That's going to happen. Just a matter of time. They have selective syncing, elegant photo and video galleries, including a stand-alone integrated app for a smoother experience. Dropbox is not there yet... but it's in the pipeline with "Dropbox Notes" in Beta testing as we speak (https://www.dropbox.com/notes).

 

Personally, I'm interested to see how they deal with broken links when shuffling files and folders around. 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

dropbox has no note app (yet), and it goes without saying that it lacks on offline one (necessary for those of us without 24/7 internet). dropbox is not unlimited. dropbox is only marginally more secure (encryption, but dropbox holds the keys).  these are some problems i see with the "threat" model. frankly, as much as i like dropbox (using it every day), it is way behind in this space (personal information management / notetaking). i'd say dropbox is under threat from the likes of microsoft or google, which offer far more storage, for far less, and they have well-developed note-taking capabilities. obviously, evernote is also under threat from them.

 

i don't know what will happen, though. personally, none of the three currently meet my needs. at any rate, you did raise an important issue for evernote -- can they continue to get away with neglecting multimedia (photo/video/music) management? these are not things i really need or want, but i imagine there are plenty of people who do. i guess their lack of emphasis on personal features for such things these days could be a result of them targeting businesses, where the multimedia element is less important. 

 

Dropbox's note app is well underway. It's not speculation. And for most people, if they are not concerned about encrypted notebooks in Evernote, I doubt they're looking for the same with Dropbox. The threat model under discussion, I believe, whether people are being naive or not, will not be based on security. Dropbox is going to really eat into the market share here. That's going to happen. Just a matter of time. They have selective syncing, elegant photo and video galleries, including a stand-alone integrated app for a smoother experience. Dropbox is not there yet... but it's in the pipeline with "Dropbox Notes" in Beta testing as we speak (https://www.dropbox.com/notes).

 

Personally, I'm interested to see how they deal with broken links when shuffling files and folders around. 

 

 

i wasn't suggesting it was speculation. it is not even a public beta yet (leaked months ago, but still not ready!?), though, so it really doesn't exist and isn't currently an option for users. even when it (whatever it is) does finally "exist," it will take months / years to ramp up and come anywhere close to the functionality of evernote. i have very, very low expectations for the app, and i don't expect it will be so successful, and i'd stress again that google (or, should i call it "alphabet"?) and microsoft are the real "threats" out there, because they have already deployed their own much more comprehensive solutions.

 

i can't speak for the security concerns of most people except to say that it is a major issue among the folks i work with -- universities, for example, will make a deal with google  to run their it stuff, while prohibiting use of dropbox for university-related stuff. that's very, very bad for dropbox. dropbox has no deals with any universities (as far as i know), and few with businesses (as far as i know), so (like evernote) it is still a minor player out there. meanwhile, google and microsoft are running full steam ahead.

 

in just a few years they've inserted themselves into universities all over the world for everything from email to file sharing; this massive market penetration has largely passed under the radar in the tech press, but i'd call it an it revolution. schools used to run their own home brewed crud, but that's been almost completely swept away. google seems to be doing the best: it is now in educational institutions in nearly 200 (?) countries and now controls nearly every (?) ivy league institution. wow. we're talking many tens of millions of students and faculty at every level all deeply tied into the google ecosystem. it's ubiquitous.

 

personally, i think evernote could carve out its own space here, and i have some ideas about how to do that, but i doubt they'd be interested (and maybe they shouldn't listen). could they ever offer truly unlimited storage, though? i doubt it, and certainly not at the low prices google or microsoft can offer.

 

dropbox is (in my opinion) headed quickly into obscurity and a death spiral. yep. i said it. sorry frank. i know it has had phenomenal growth and i know it is now at an astounding 400 million users, but i don't think they'll be able to translate that into a sustainable, paying user base. the pricing and market penetration for google and microsoft make it pretty much impossible for them to continue with their growth rate: i think microsoft charges less money for the same amount of storage and throws in microsoft office (i know evernote thinks office is dead, but as an everyday user of microsoft's office, i see nothing out there that even comes close to the functionality and reliability something like word or excel offer -- they are indispensable in all of the office environments i deal with).

 

let's check back in a year and see how things look curiously, i probably use dropbox today more than the apple, amazon, google, or microsoft cloud offerings. but, i don't (and won't) pay for it (don't have more than a few gigabytes of things i am willing to store with weak security). i'll certainly miss it when it's gone. and, i'll be happy if i am wrong about their imminent demise!

[Frank.dg 1,385]

You sound like the Stephen Hawkings of personal information management. A lot of theorizing. He once said that we'd have to grow babies outside of the womb to increase the brain size of the human race, since our brains were limited by the size of the birth canal. Like why would one want a bigger brain just yet? And what digital needs do the masses now have that we don't already have solutions for? Dropbox, as you well know, has use cases that will never be had in Evernote (and vice versa). Dropbox CEO says they "now have enough cash to survive"... while Evernote is not quite there. Note taking would just be the cherry on top. I use both Evernote and Dropbox. Many people do. We don't have to choose... but Dropbox is gearing up for expansion. And it's how they market themselves... not whether or not they have Evernote functionality or not. In our opinion, Evernote is right there at the top (God help us)... but why isn't planet earth using it? There's more to it than just being the best... and who knows what the heck is best anyways, unless one has had the chance to figure it out through trial and error? 

[eric99 978]

Maybe Evernote and Dropbox should join forces for a unified single-access-point cloud service,  against google and microsoft ?

 

Apparently it already started:

 

Special offer

Get Evernote Premium, We’ll Give You More.

For a limited time, buy one year of Evernote Premium and get access to 3 free months of Dropbox Pro. Don’t miss out on this amazing productivity combo.

Get the offer

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

meanwhile, google and microsoft are running full steam ahead.

 

in just a few years they've inserted themselves into universities all over the world for everything from email to file sharing; this massive market penetration has largely passed under the radar in the tech press, but i'd call it an it revolution. schools used to run their own home brewed crud, but that's been almost completely swept away. google seems to be doing the best: it is now in educational institutions in nearly 200 (?) countries and now controls nearly every (?) ivy league institution. wow. we're talking many tens of millions of students and faculty at every level all deeply tied into the google ecosystem. it's ubiquitous.

 

 

GM, I was very surprised to hear that Google was so deeply ingrained in universities, so I did a bit of research.

I found this, which is very impressive:  Google Apps for Education.  And it is all free to all schools.

 

Google for Education: 

 

I am curious about one thing you said: 

"we're talking many tens of millions of students and faculty at every level all deeply tied into the google ecosystem. it's ubiquitous."

 

How do you know there are "tens of millions of students" actually using the Google system?  Has Google and/or the universities done surveys?  It reminds me of Evernote's statement about having 150M+ users.  I always wonder how many are actively using Evernote.  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

You sound like the Stephen Hawkings of personal information management. A lot of theorizing. He once said that we'd have to grow babies outside of the womb to increase the brain size of the human race, since our brains were limited by the size of the birth canal. Like why would one want a bigger brain just yet? And what digital needs do the masses now have that we don't already have solutions for? Dropbox, as you well know, has use cases that will never be had in Evernote (and vice versa). Dropbox CEO says they "now have enough cash to survive"... while Evernote is not quite there. Note taking would just be the cherry on top. I use both Evernote and Dropbox. Many people do. We don't have to choose... but Dropbox is gearing up for expansion. And it's how they market themselves... not whether or not they have Evernote functionality or not. In our opinion, Evernote is right there at the top (God help us)... but why isn't planet earth using it? There's more to it than just being the best... and who knows what the heck is best anyways, unless one has had the chance to figure it out through trial and error? 

 

So, I sound like one of the most brilliant scientists of our time? OK. I'll go with that Coincidentally, I was in Cambridge a couple of days ago and saw his office. Maybe there is a singularity on the horizon -- we run into one another and the power of our brilliance causes a cosmic event? Hahaha. 

 

As for one or the other, I wasn't suggesting that it is a zero-sum game like Highlander. But, I am saying that the ground has shifted in the last few years. Google and Microsoft are in very different places now. I'm not sure that Dropbox and Evernote have managed to position themselves very well against these new threats. To put things into perspective, two years ago at this time OneNote was a non-starter for OSX and iOS users. It was basically an empty field for cross-platform information managers like Evernote. Fast forward to the present and OneNote is everywhere with some really polished user experiences, especially on the Surface. It is an entirely different beast. 

 

As for Google in schools, I think they claim over 40 million educational users, and I would guess those are actual ones. Why? The email accounts assigned to students are run by Google, the cloud space allocated is on Google servers, the software access provided on university computers is Google, the tech support provided by the university is for Google, etc., etc. You really cannot avoid it, because it is baked into everything now. When I first went to Princeton, I think the university ran its own home brew (kludgy) email, but by the time I left, it was all run smoothly by Google. That is a big deal, and I don't think the press has recognized just how significant this could be. In a relatively short time, Google and Microsoft have created brand new revenue streams that will quite likely feed users into their services for decades down the road. Imagine what a boost to business it would be if universities handed out Evernote accounts to every incoming student, teachers communicated with students via work chat, teachers structured courses around Evernote (I did that for a while), administrative staff all collaborated with it, and so forth -- that is what Google and Microsoft are doing on a massive scale while cloud services like Evernote and Dropbox are sometimes banned or discouraged.

 

 

I expect Evernote and Dropbox to continue expanding their user base (maybe not 150 million active Evernote users -- I don't know -- but certainly I expect they are adding tens of millions of accounts every year). The question is not how great they are or how popular they become, but whether they can monetize those users, and I am not convinced that Dropbox has figured it out. Evernote has probably helped themselves out a lot with the new pricing, though I cannot fathom why it was rolled out that way with "unlimited" limited service. More collaboration between Dropbox and Evernote would probably make for some interesting possibilities. It seems like a good idea to me. Is this the shape of things to come (Evernote conference in the autumn)?

[CalS 5,280]

Not to take this hightly intellectual discussion down a few notches, but how much storage do we all truly need?  How much of the storage we have is actually replicated someplace else but we bring it into the fold either for ease of use or consolidated searching?  I am interested in what could possibly generate 100s of GBs of personal storage that could be that meaningful and confidential.  Bad analogy, but it feels like some of the big finned American cars of the 50s and 60s, pretty to look at and ride in, but oh so wasteful.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Yep... live streaming allows us to listen and watch universal media content on demand. But one thing that's still a pain in the butt is the proliferation of one's personal photo and video files. Those account for most of my Dropbox limit. I'd take more video clips on my iPhone if I had the space. Maybe that's why Snapchat is so darn popular. It's living in the moment as opposed to hoarding stuff. 

 

Google+/ Picasa allows unlimited uploads of photos/ videos... but at a reduced resolution. If you want to retain full resolution it starts eating into your limit. Aaargh! The ONLY reason I need GB's of storage space is mostly for my video clips of my daughter... of which there are many. If I want to continue shooting video clips I have to fork out. 

[CalS 5,280]

Frank,

 

Exactly.  Personalized, not particularly confidential, large file sizes, and you don't want to lose it.  Do the same myself.  Was wondering more about the demand for 100GBs of personal confidential storage.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Not to take this hightly intellectual discussion down a few notches, but how much storage do we all truly need? 

 

Good point.  For most of us, not that much really.

 

IMO 1TB is way more than most of us will need for personal storage.

 

But there are some major exceptions:

1. Raw video (like direct from a camcorder) for video editing, especially if it is HD.
2. RAW photo images (like from a digital camera)
3. Scans of large books
4. High res scans of large photos/paintings

But I think the relevant question is, how much of all of that does a person need to store online?

Note that I'm talking about for personal use, not for a business service.

 

Again, IMO, I think not that much.

A few hundred GBs is probably enough for most, with a high end of 1TB.

 

Evernote's new limit of 10GB/month upload (still unlimited total storage) for Premium accounts provides way more than ample coverage.

Frankly, I can't imagine generating 10GB/month of stuff on an on-going basis (for personal use).

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

it depends on what you do. i carry around a terabyte or two of external storage in my bag. others might get by with a 32GB thumb drive. i don't want to carry it around, but i have to, because it won't fit onto the cloud, and even if it did, no service exists yet that can search it all for me.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=2033

 

if you go paperless, teach using multimedia (making podcasts or videos), scan books, photograph manuscripts, record meetings, run a business, etc. you might find you generate terabytes of data every year. it's cool that some folks don't need much space. but, some of us do. there are lots of things i cannot imagine myself doing or needing, but i don't want to impose the limits of my imagination on others. 

 

evernote's 10GB per month is OK (it'd still take me years to put everything into Evernote), but more importantly, there is no selective sync, so i am limited by the tiny size of the local drive on my computer. practically speaking, Evernote could have a limit of 1 or 1000 GB per month and it wouldn't matter as long as the bottleneck remains.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@GM, but is your use case personal, as opposed to professional/business?

 

I was careful to make that distinction in my post above.

[CalS 5,280]

I get the need for storage and particularly the redundancy, per all the above.  If just seems to me that unless the data is confidential the reliable service for the best cost is a simple option.  That or the 1TB drive in the bag (which definitely is no a car with big fins ). 

 

More interested in the confidential information and how one generates 100s of GBs of that stuff on a personal level.  Just interested that's all.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

More interested in the confidential information and how one generates 100s of GBs of that stuff on a personal level.  Just interested that's all.

 

I don't think most people could.

Even for a business, all of that sensitive, confidential info is usually in text form, whether it's in a file, or in a database.  And text takes very little storage.

Even a PDF created from text (like from MS Word), takes very little storage.

 

But when you combine personal and confidential, I can't see how one could generate that much.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

i don't know most people. i do know i've managed to generate a lot of data.

come to my class next semester, film it, and see how many gigabytes that is. students in the video? yes. then it is inappropriate for the cloud. i could list more examples, but does it matter how or why i have accumulated data? just because i can't imagine your situation doesn't mean my lack of imagination should impose limits on you.

i want to encrypt my data, i want it on the cloud, i want to sync my devices, and i want an app to manage all of the data. i'd be happy to pay for it, offer feedback, and evangelize in return. i think lots of individuals, businesses, and institutions would also be willing to do so. but, evernote refuses to meet this need.

as far as unlimited storage, someone out there sure wants it, because evernote, google, and others are/were offering it. should evernote follow my suggestions? maybe not. perhaps it is in their best interest to limit the service to data needs that don't require much space or security. that's fine. at least they have clarified things.

[CalS 5,280]

No need to imagine when the use case can be so succinctly explained.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

No need to imagine when the use case can be so succintly explained.

 

thanks for the kind words. by the way, there are apps that do this (full encryption, cloud, device sync, information manager). evernote has just chosen not to be one of them. this is fine, of course, because they have to make the choices that work best for them. however, i think it should be made clear that this is a choice and not the result of some technical limitations that render it impossible. it is possible and it has already happened. in one case, an individual developer managed it on his own.

[cgk 33]

 

This is my favourite bit

 

“Unfortunately, ‘unlimited’ is such a powerful term that it ended up being both confusing and problematic."

 

Unlimited isn't confusing at all, it means no limits. I'd guess that Evernote chose the wrong language or is being run with such a lack of foresight that they just never saw this coming. 

 

I think Mr Sinkov is pretty easily confused.

 

Yep. "Unlimited" pretty much means what it says, and to complain when people take you at your word, especially when you use phrases like "remember everything" or bill yourself as the place for "everything you do" invites trouble. They had problems with it from day one, and I don't think anyone is surprised that people took advantage of the service that was advertised. I wonder (about this and other decisions) how this went from being an idea to an actual feature without someone raising their hand and asking questions. 

 

Oh well. One thing worth noting is that Evernote (as always) is willing to refund people's money if they aren't satisfied. That's a great policy -- some (well, probably most, but we don't tend to comment on good stuff) of their decisions are good ones

 

 

Heh - this makes me think - a few years ago in the UK, I complained to the advertising standards people (I forget what they are called) that one of the mobile networks were selling a contract as unlimited data and where in the small print, they noted that unlimited mean 50mb (no not 500mb, 50mb). I was amazed when my complaint was knocked back as they said that 50mb could be described as unlimited....

[B60boy 0]

Well, I was moving some notes over from OneNote back to Evernote and wham, I hit my monthly 10GB limit and now I'm stuck.  That is how I found out that they went back on the policy of unlimited plan to a 10GB plan.  I was taken back by that.  Out of all the software and technology that I use, I never been capped.  Especially when I pay for a "Premium" offering.  I now feel how others on the Basic plan felt when they took away the "email" yourself capability.  It does feel that they are trying to figure out the right revenue combination in a tiered model.   

 

Now, you look at the $50 you pay for Evernote Premium, which I see great value in BTW, and I see that I pay $70 for Office 365 which includes 1TB of space, OneNote and the Office Suite.  Umm I say.  And being an Apple guy, I see the Notes application is getting a much deserved face lift, along with new Share Sheets functionality, I go umm...  

 

With these two combinations of Office 365 and the new Apple Notes app, I don't think that I need to shell out another $50 for Evernote when they are now capping me as a Premium member since May of 2008.  I do love the Evernote ecosystem, I love being able to email myself notes.  But the competition has caught up.  And now that I'm being capped because I want to convert my OneNote stuff and really have me head scratching.  

My Premium does not end till March of 2016.  I will continue to use it but also ween myself off to OneNote and I'm really interested in the Apple Note redesign.  My son has the developers copy on his iPad and it really does almost all of what I need it to do.  BTW, I converted him to Evernote as a High School Junior and his grades were much improved since he used Evernote.  I am a believer, but I'm also getting confused by he mix messages that Evernote is sending.  

 

Anyway, my silly thoughts on this subject.  I thought that I would add to the conversation.  I have enjoyed all of your comments.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Well, I was moving some notes over from OneNote back to Evernote and wham, I hit my monthly 10GB limit and now I'm stuck.

 

IMO, if Evernote marketing was smart, they would grant a Premium account owner an exception to upload their entire OneNote account to Evernote.

The user, of course, would have to provide some type of proof of the size of their ON account.

 

In fact, the ultimate marketing device is to provide a tool that will automatically import a users entire ON account into Evernote.

This would allow EN to verify the ON size, and provide a **huge** incentive for users to switch to Evernote.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Well, I was moving some notes over from OneNote back to Evernote and wham, I hit my monthly 10GB limit and now I'm stuck.  That is how I found out that they went back on the policy of unlimited plan to a 10GB plan.  I was taken back by that.  Out of all the software and technology that I use, I never been capped.  Especially when I pay for a "Premium" offering.  I now feel how others on the Basic plan felt when they took away the "email" yourself capability.  It does feel that they are trying to figure out the right revenue combination in a tiered model.   

 

 

 

I don't disagree with any of your comments about the rather shambolic way they have handled this. However, there have until been recently been lots of caps on Evernote  - note size, number of notebooks, monthly uploads. They briefly removed for upload cap for Premium and then rolled back to 10gb, lots of the other caps remained. So you've been capped since 2008.

 

MS cap you too at 1TB.

[cgk 33]

 

 

i can't speak for the security concerns of most people except to say that it is a major issue among the folks i work with -- universities, for example, will make a deal with google  to run their it stuff, while prohibiting use of dropbox for university-related stuff. that's very, very bad for dropbox. dropbox has no deals with any universities (as far as i know), and few with businesses (as far as i know), so (like evernote) it is still a minor player out there. meanwhile, google and microsoft are running full steam ahead.

 

 

 

But let's be clear about what actually happens (I'm an academic who looks at information usage and digital technology) the academic staff at least completely ignore this and use dropbox anyway - it's ubiquitous in the sector. 

 

Same with google docs - all of our students have gapps accounts - the usage of google docs is tiny, they all use word.

[gazumped 11,652]

Premium users previously on a 4GB cap could buy additional upload capacity for a few dollars if and when it was needed - you probably still can - in suitably increased GB tranches.  If in one month or another you hit the 10GB limit it should still be possible either to lift the cap at minimal cost,  or just to transfer notes into a Local notebook (not synced-no cap) until your limit resets and then use up some of the next month's 10GB while you catch up.  Just sayin.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

i can't speak for the security concerns of most people except to say that it is a major issue among the folks i work with -- universities, for example, will make a deal with google  to run their it stuff, while prohibiting use of dropbox for university-related stuff. that's very, very bad for dropbox. dropbox has no deals with any universities (as far as i know), and few with businesses (as far as i know), so (like evernote) it is still a minor player out there. meanwhile, google and microsoft are running full steam ahead.

 

But let's be clear about what actually happens (I'm an academic who looks at information usage and digital technology) the academic staff at least completely ignore this and use dropbox anyway - it's ubiquitous in the sector. 

 

Same with google docs - all of our students have gapps accounts - the usage of google docs is tiny, they all use word.

sure. i agree that there are a lot of folks in every organization who ignore or work around it department constraints. i wasn't arguing that academics follow the rules any more than anyone else. unfortunately, in this case, it is probably illegal and, depending on the situation, may even be unethical. when a student's confidential health information is shared with a faculty member in order for that faculty member to make accomadations, for example, if that is put up into the cloud (in a calendar, evernote note, email, dropbox file, etc.) i suppose it could run afoul of hipaa. at the very least, it is a betrayal of the student's privacy. this is why i recommend folks use apps that can securely sync with other devices without using the cloud, or with the cloud, but in a zero-knowledge encrypted environment.

but, that's neither here nor there. we are talking about revenue. whether folks do use dropbox on their own or not isn't the issue here, in my opinion, because they could be entirely unaware of the legal and ethical isses -- they just want the convenience and may not understand the cloud or think things through; what's important is that the university policies reflect the unwillingness of major institutions to invest in inadequately secured technologies, and so a massive amount of money is flowing to google or microsoft rather than to dropbox.

i've actually seen various usage patterns with google products. pretty much everyone uses the university-supplied google account, and many students use google docs for collaboration, but assignments end up in word, especially if university computers have office installed (again, in the context of this conversation, money is flowing to microsoft and google, but not to evernote or dropbox). i've had a significant number of students refuse to buy word, though, especially now that it is a subscription service, and the number of alternative formats originating elsewhere is increasing (pages, open office, etc.). the final format is often a pdf.

at any rate, i don't question the huge user base numbers of dropbox or evernote. they are popular partly because they are extremely convenient. i have accounts with both as well. the question is how they go about monetizing those users, and this is where i think dropbox has a big problem.

[Robyn Jane 2]

This is just one more reason I find myself using OneNote more and more every day. With Windows 10 comes OneDrive, and I have 15Gb storage for free. If I need more than that, I can get 100Gb for under $2 a month...which is less than half what I'm paying for EN Premium.

 

The only reason I haven't made the change completely is I have too much information already in EN. Besides, EN is like an old friend or a comfortable pair of shoes: you like both of them too much to ever say goodbye.

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi @Robyn Jane - if you're comparing storage limits,  remember that the argument is about a 10GB per month limit being applied - so you get 120GB per year for your EN subscription.  That's 120GB in year one,  then 240 in year two,  360 in year three...  you do the math.  Evernote effectively doesn't have an upper limit (currently) on the amount of storage you can occupy over time.  Given that it still works pretty well despite various annoying glitches I'll be staying around here for a while too...

[Robyn Jane 2]

Well, that would acount for my confusion. I thought 10Gb was the limit on your total storage space. But you're saying it's a per-month upload limit? This changes everything!

 

Thank you for clearing that up!

[B60boy 0]

Since I was at 95% of my 10GB monthly cap as a "Premium" member, I have been stalled from adding more notes.  So much for the marketing slogan "Remember Everything".  I was then forced to use OneNote along with my Apple Notes.  So, like Forrest Gump, I just kept on going.  I transferred pretty much everything in EN over to ON and Apple notes.  I will be putting my Premium subscription on ice as it is not due till next spring.

 

Let the be a lesson to you at Evernote.  I was a loyal loving end user who happily paid for me Premium subscription.  Then wham, I got caught that there is a monthly cap.  Just when I was moving everything into evernote.  You forced my hand to try other products and guess what?  It works and I survived.  OneNote is very good, I'm excited to see what the iOS9 Apple Notes brings and I even sprinkled in some Google Doc's for PDF's and file based notes.  it all works, no caps, very searchable.  

 

I might come back, but besides the cap, i was having crashes and other odd ball issues.  I will always love Evernote and hopefully they will change their cap policy.  

[gazumped 11,652]

Since I was at 95% of my 10GB monthly cap as a "Premium" member, I have been stalled from adding more notes.  So much for the marketing slogan "Remember Everything".  I was then forced to use OneNote along with my Apple Notes.  So, like Forrest Gump, I just kept on going.  I transferred pretty much everything in EN over to ON and Apple notes.  I will be putting my Premium subscription on ice as it is not due till next spring.

 

Let the be a lesson to you at Evernote.  I was a loyal loving end user who happily paid for me Premium subscription.  Then wham, I got caught that there is a monthly cap.  Just when I was moving everything into evernote.  You forced my hand to try other products and guess what?  It works and I survived.  OneNote is very good, I'm excited to see what the iOS9 Apple Notes brings and I even sprinkled in some Google Doc's for PDF's and file based notes.  it all works, no caps, very searchable.  

 

I might come back, but besides the cap, i was having crashes and other odd ball issues.  I will always love Evernote and hopefully they will change their cap policy.  

 

Thanks for the tip - glad you found something to absorb your level of usage,  and which seems to be working for you.  If any other users are finding the 10GB limit a restriction it's useful to know there are alternatives.  I keep on forgetting to check my upload score,  but I think it's normally well below 1GB.