Stop being obnoxious!

[mgsxx 16]

Hi there, really wise marketing guys at Evernote!

So, you "extorted" the Plus subscription from me. I'm not that keen on Evernote as I was a few years ago when I was a premium user but I stil use it for some purposes. Looking at  competitors I see no better solution. It's not that Evernote is really good it's just that others are not good at all. In particular, the main migrating choice of many people, OneNote, has horrible data model IMO. So I decided to stay and pay. I'm not accusing you or anything in "forcing" me to pay. it's your right to set any price you like and you still have the best option available on the market for me and for people like me. So the move to cut free services may just work. Freeloaders will go away, some of them start to pay. No, I'm angry at you for completely different reason.

Your Windows desktop client allows to customize the toolbar buttons. There is the Upgrade button. It can be removed, BUT THEN IT POPS UP AGAIN!!!!

Yep, I'm a paying customer and I can't make the f*ng toolbar as I like it to be. Becouse you just f*cking have to FORCE me to pay premium which I don't want and will not ever want. But no, you prefer to *insist*, in the rudest way.

It would be less rude just to forbid to remove the button. At least it will be a honest message: you are not enough of a paying customer. But instead you pretend to give me a choice and then it turns out to be a lie, you take it away in the clumsiest manner possible. It's the worst level of obnoxiousness. And NOBODY from the new CEO down to the programmer who made this sh*t seems to notice anything wrong with the approach.

I think Evernote institutiobally isn't capable to do anything really good.

Despite subscribung I keep waiting for alternatives. Maybe Apple Notes will grow up to it in a few years. Some notebooks I have migrated there, Apple enex import feature works mostly OK.

Meanwhile take you precious "upgrade" button and shove it in some part of you body for permanent storage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[NorcalScott 53]

This is really aggravating that, as a paying customer, I drag the upgrade button away and it shows up the next time I restart the app.

I've been a paid subscriber for a long time, but I don't need to top tier.  I should not be constantly nagged to upgrade.  Show it to me once, that's fine, but when I take my time to drag it away and then you bring it back...that is f@#%ing inexcusable.  Evernote is really turning into a customer averse company.

[mgsxx 16]

2 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Thats an opinion. I see value in the Evernote product.

Of course. It's just my opinion. Does this fact makes it bad or wrong or whatever? I haven't heard any counterarguments.

And I see value in Evernote too, I said it many times. For me Plus is worth the price Evernore asks for a jotting down place. Yet.

But it's not "me" and not "now" I'm talking about. I trying to predict the future. Will the pro users continue to use Evernote and pay? I seriously doubt that.

[DTLow 5,749]

9 minutes ago, mgsxx said:

Of course. It's just my opinion. Does this fact makes it bad or wrong or whatever? I haven't heard any counterarguments.

The counter argument will be to see how many pay the new premium rate.  
I'm a year from renewal so I'll be making the decision then

What I meant was: there are facts and there are opinions
You seemed to be presenting a statement as fact

[mgsxx 16]

1 minute ago, DTLow said:

Wasn't "it works for me" a counter argument

No. It's just a fact. Like a fact that I too use Evernote and it works for me in some ways. Several facts do not constitute complete statistics.

4 minutes ago, DTLow said:

What I meant was there are facts and there are opinions
You seemed to be presenting a statement as fact

To get this strait and for the record: pretty much all I said in this thread is just my opinion. I do not insist it's infallible and not even plain wrong. And I do not expect everybody to agree with me.

Also, as you no doubt have noticed, my English is far from perfect. It makes me harder to understand. I apologize for this and ask to cut me some slack  I try to be clear as I can.

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

22 hours ago, mgsxx said:

Evernote as it exists now is useful for casual uses like jotting down some ideas and web clips and that's pretty much all.

My final remark on this thread: I would argue that this can be a non-trivial, non-casual, and indeed professional use, as one part of a professional work process. For instance, I'm in a library doing some research for an article I'm writing. I use an OCR app like Text Fairy on my phone to copy information into Evernote. Later, I transfer that information into a better organizational tool and word processor as I am creating and writing the article. Or I spot a book that I need for a different project. I take a picture of its title page in EN (or use Text Fairy), write a comment or two, and it is safely filed in an appropriate notebook (perhaps appropriately tagged too). Late as I am gathering bibliography for that project, the information is there. I simply don't expect one program to be used for research and information-gathering, organization, writing, and bibliographical management. Perhaps I should do so; but I just don't.

[Austin G 527]

@mgsxx Please remove the upgrade icon from the toolbar, select File>Exit (not the "X" icon on the top-right), then reopen Evernote. The upgrade icon should not return to the toolbar after removing it and selecting File>Exit. Let us know if that is not the case. 

[mgsxx 16]

23 minutes ago, Austin G said:

@mgsxx Please remove the upgrade icon from the toolbar, select File>Exit (not the "X" icon on the top-right), then reopen Evernote. The upgrade icon should not return to the toolbar after removing it and selecting File>Exit. Let us know if that is not the case. 

Evernote for Windows 6.1.2.2292

I removed the upgrade button and relaunched Evernote. So far so good. I'll let you know if it'll pop up again.

So, this annoying behavior of the upgrade button is not a feature but a bug? It's very hard to differentiate between the two with aggressive marketing.

I'll be very glad to know it's a bug.

 

[dconnet 529]

The Upgrade button is special. If you don't see the page where you can select a tier, the app is designed to put it back. (Sorry, those were the requirements.) If you see that page, the Upgrade button should stay away for 90 days. Unless you upgrade (or downgrade) the version of the app. That re-triggers it too. Since I'm the one who's been implementing this "feature", I have tried to push back on the requirements when I can... I'm a user too!

[mgsxx 16]

Thank you for the clear explanation.

I'm sorry to hear it's indeed not a bug

Aggressive marketing is so much not my thing that such "features" are urging me to drop the product. 

[DTLow 5,749]

1 minute ago, mgsxx said:

You don't do so, you said.

Who?

However, I don't store everything in Evernote.
I use the best tools for the job: 
- a photo app for my photos
- a music app for my music
etc

[gazumped 12,215]

On 19/07/2016 at 8:27 PM, dconnet said:

If you don't see the page where you can select a tier, the app is designed to put it back

If you're a paying subscriber,  do you see that page?  If so you should get 90 nag-free days....

[NorcalScott 53]

I do see this page, and after numerous reboots, the Upgrade button always comes back.  I am "hoping" this is a bug and I have reported this to Evernote support and they have assigned the case to a technical person.

In fact, even bringing this back every 90 days is not acceptable.  I am a product manager, and I would NEVER do something as nagging as that to paying customers.

Edit - Support confirmed this is a bug and Evernote engineering are working on it.  Not sure if the behavior is for it to come back after 90 days.

[NorcalScott 53]

It seems that this issue is still happening.  This leads me to believe that it is not in fact a "bug" as indicated in previous communications with Evernote support, rather, this is just a "pester a paid user into upgrading to the next level" sort of thing.  Very disappointing.

[PeroPero 0]

As of today, January 8, 2017, I cannot remove this Upgrade button no matter what, restarting or seeing the upgrade page. It is reappearing after each syncing, which means it's always there regardless the fact that I upgraded to Plus. I don't care of this button be up or not, but I am using a laptop and I want to get rid of toolbar completely. I don't need the toolbar at all. But that stupid button keep it up!!!!!!

This thread is up for moths already. What are you guys doing there in Evernote if you cannot find time (expertise?) to fix this bug? How many time do you need? Any estimation would be appreciated.

[gazumped 12,215]

Hi.  If you don't get a 90-day 'pass' on the upgrade button (see link),  I suggest you use the Plus ability to contact support directly,  or message them on Twitter

[rccryan 1]

On 7/19/2016 at 0:42 PM, Austin G said:

@mgsxx Please remove the upgrade icon from the toolbar, select File>Exit (not the "X" icon on the top-right), then reopen Evernote. The upgrade icon should not return to the toolbar after removing it and selecting File>Exit. Let us know if that is not the case. 

If this does not work for you, I'd suggest the following work around:

Move the "Upgrade" button somewhere less obtrusive (use Tools > Customize Toolbar).

For me, this involved moving it to the far left and adding a bunch of Separator icons so it does not get in the way of "File" (which I commonly use for Exit because clicking the red X gives unexpected behavior). In my case, this customization also had the added benefit of aligning the useful Toolbar icons with the Notes List panel rather than the Left Panel (are there even any Toolbar icons that apply to Notebooks?). See attached.

[farmer_rob 5]

This didn't seem like a bug to me because no matter how I closed out of the program, the Upgrade button would come back upon startup or sync.

But I found a fix for me!

If the Upgrade button is on the far right, its original position in the default toolbar or where it appears when it is restored, it will always come back, but if I first move it to another location in the toolbar (far left, center, etc) and then remove it, it doesn't come back! Hope it works for others, too.

[gazumped 12,215]

Just hope that Evernote Marketing don't read this thread for a while... 

[Andis 6]

I totally agree with this thread. I am a paying customer but this extremely annoying upgrade button keeps poping up constantly.

So, Evernote, stop bugging me about upgrading to Premium, I will not upgrade to Premium. Ever.

[mgsxx 16]

33 minutes ago, gustavgi said:

But the recent moves and the new CEO's ideology shows that Evernote is finally back on track after 2012-2015, which were terrible years.

Other then the prices change and cutting freeloaders I don't see any real changes. IMO the product itself is flowed in many ways, in ideology and in implementation alike. If they want to appeal to the pro users in order to fetch premium prices on increasingly competitive market they have to think about features those pro users need, dammit. 

Well, we shall see. I hope for the best, but i'm ready for the worst...

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

Already requested yesterday (slightly less obnoxiously):

 

[mgsxx 16]

16 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Already requested yesterday (slightly less obnoxiously):

 

Nope. I'm not talking about ads. They are obnoxious too but I'm talking about "upgrade" button in the Evernote Windows client toolbar that pops up after deleting it. Feel free to customize your toolbar, our precious paying customer! That's what I'm angry at. The post you are referring to has nothing to do with the issue.

I agree, I'm not polite. It's on purpose. IMO that genius that devised this "feature" deserves it. Maybe it make him/her to think a little if he/she can do so. I'm very angry at such obnoxious policies and IMO alienating paying customers is not a wise strategy. So I want to look angry. As I indeed am.

Of course, Evernote designers are free to ignore my anger and most probably they'll do exactly that. Well, all I can do is to provide honest feedback.

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

OK, sorry, my misunderstanding. Frankly, and just for what it's worth, anger is so widespread on these forums that I doubt that it gets anyone's attention anymore, other than that of those of us who just want to come here and see whether we can help, and find all the outrage an unpleasant distraction.

[mgsxx 16]

I understand. All in all, I should had been more polite... But I really can't find polite words for this. A raw spot was touched :-/

[mgsxx 16]

You see, at one point I loved Evernote. These days are long gone... And it's really sad.

Evernote had chance to become a GREAT product. But they blew it IMO. 

[gustavgi 311]

44 minutes ago, mgsxx said:

You see, at one point I loved Evernote. These days are long gone... And it's really sad.

Evernote had chance to become a GREAT product. But they blew it IMO. 

Everyone has their own perspective, and I think the only thing Evernote "blew" was not raising the prices and limit the entry level sooner.

By letting 200 million users sign up for free to an attractive product, it forced Evernote to put major resources into securing data and support for those millions of people that would never pay a cent. That forced Evernote to instead try and focus their development towards alternative income streams - businesses, which led to Work Chat etc...

On the other hand, by not raising the prices sooner, personal users have been spared from spending more money during all this time..

But the recent moves and the new CEO's ideology shows that Evernote is finally back on track after 2012-2015, which were terrible years.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

9 minutes ago, gustavgi said:

But the recent moves and the new CEO's ideology shows that Evernote is finally back on track after 2012-2015, which were terrible years.

Well, that makes me look forward to the future, since I only started using it in, I think, 2013, right in the middle of the terrible years!  It's actually worked quite well for me, so I hope what is to come will be great!

[gustavgi 311]

4 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Well, that makes me look forward to the future, since I only started using it in, I think, 2013, right in the middle of the terrible years!  It's actually worked quite well for me, so I hope what is to come will be great!

Terrible to me in the sense that 85-90% of the functionality that I value in today's Evernote, was developed prior to 2013. After the company became valued at $1 billion 3-4 years ago, I feel that the service has only taken baby steps.

Even though EN still struggles, I think the recent tendencies show that focus is back to planning and delivering a better customer experience now and in the future.

[mgsxx 16]

1 minute ago, DTLow said:

You haven't explained.  It works for me

How come? To remember everything first you have to store everything in Evernote. You don't do so, you said.

 

[mgsxx 16]

In Evernote defense, I must say that IMO, despite all, Evernote is still the best general-purpose note taking solution available.

And they have one feature that I am willing to backup with my money: they do not sell my data to the ad agencies. There is not that many solutions you can say that about. 

Still. The mandatory "upgrade" toolbar button is very obnoxious nevertheless

[gustavgi 311]

23 minutes ago, mgsxx said:

Other then the prices change and cutting freeloaders I don't see any real changes. IMO the product itself is flowed in many ways, in ideology and in implementation alike. If they want to appeal to the pro users in order to fetch premium prices on increasingly competitive market they have to think about features those pro users need, dammit. 

Well, we shall see. I hope for the best, but i'm ready for the worst...

 

 

Well most of the recent changes are easily forgotten about, because they are easily taken for granted pretty much from the moment they are implementated, as they should have been there like 3+ years ago. It is also easy to dismiss these changes as something positive, for that same reason. But the fact that they are now focusing on such implementations is a sign of something positive.

Examples:

- Support for HDPI screens
- Floating search from single note view (Ctrl+Q)
- Customizable styles for notebooks & tags
- Simulated tag inheritance
- Dynamic left panel/jump to tag/notebook
- Extensive options for advanced users (latest beta)
- Thumbnail view (latest beta)
- Zoom implementation

All implemented in the last 3 months.

 

[mgsxx 16]

48 minutes ago, gustavgi said:

Examples:

- Support for HDPI screens
- Floating search from single note view (Ctrl+Q)
- Customizable styles for notebooks & tags
- Simulated tag inheritance
- Dynamic left panel/jump to tag/notebook
- Extensive options for advanced users (latest beta)
- Thumbnail view (latest beta)
- Zoom implementation

These all are steps in the right direction. And the fact that they are happening is encouraging. FINALLY they remembered about basic usability.

But they are constricted by large existing codebase, different client discrepancies, but most of all - by too primitive data model, IMHO.

For example, the most interesting feature from the mentioned, "simulated tag inheritance", is implemented only on Windows (Mac or iOS clients does not support it, and web client does not too), does not work with "-tag:" queries, and basically is just a pure Windows client interface hack. it's a horrible user experience and at closer examination proves to be practically unusable. Typical of Evernote.

These features are just scratching a long, long standing itches. New beta features? Haven't seen them but I do not hold my breath. They do not sound like attempts to address real Evernote issues, IMHO. What are those issues and how to address them? Well, I have a few thoughts. If Evernote will pay me I will write them down in a week or two 8-) In short, Evernote is not suited for the structured information and for structuring information because of the too simplistic data model, primitive and inconvenient ways of selecting notes by non-trivial criteria, and completely rigid styles of presenting selected notes. Evernote is not a data storage, it's just a bunch of barely organized notes, and in the end you are at mercy of full text search. Add to this the abysmal in its limitedness note editor and you get the complete picture. 

Granted, existing data model is enough for many. FTS is great, don't get me wrong. But for pro users it's not exactly enough. I think, practically all that Apple have to do to take away pretty much all Evernote users that use mainly Apple devices and that still do not left  is to implement simple tags...

 

 

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

22 hours ago, mgsxx said:

.... In short, Evernote is not suited for the structured information and for structuring information because of the too simplistic data model, primitive and inconvenient ways of selecting notes by non-trivial criteria, and completely rigid styles of presenting selected notes. Evernote is not a data storage, it's just a bunch of barely organized notes, and in the end you are at mercy of full text search. Add to this the abysmal in its limitedness note editor and you get the complete picture....

In other words, it's EverNOTE, not EverComplexDataRetrieval.  Granted, the note editor has some limitations, but I don't find them a problem when I'm writing notes, not chapters of a novel or a scientific treatise. As for whether this is suitable for "pro" users, IMO that would depend on the profession.

[mgsxx 16]

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

In other words, it's EverNOTE, not EverComplexDataRetrieval.

Yes, exactly. But after much thought about it I see this as the main problem of Evernote as a product. Why I think so is too long to describe. A few weeks time  Anybody want to pay for the article I need to write to explain my arguments? No?

Bad editor can be fixed, it's mostly technical challenge. But underlying inability to structure data is the real problem. You may not feel it but it's there. It's like GTD: nobody thinks he needs it until he gets the idea. Nobody thinks they need to structure their notes for pretty much any serious work (large amounts and complexity, like hundreds or even dozens of notes of different kinds) until they see how to do so. Evernote doesn't really have anything to offer in this regard so you just don't know what you are missing. 

In other words, if EverNOTE is not EverComplexDataRetrieval, then why to bother to store complex data in it in the first place? Now there is plenty of good, cheep of even free solutions for simple notes. I would wager that in a few years Apple Notes will take a major chunk of this market, and Google Keep will get the rest. Who will pay for Evernote then? This is the question that Evernote executives should have been thinking about many years ago. But they blew it IMHO. It's too late.

I like English language. For example, unlike my native language, there is nice clear distinction between words "complex" and "complicated". Now Evernote has simple (simplistic even) data model, from-somewhat-to-too-much complicated user interface, and technical problems to boot. Technical problems could be fixed, complicated interface can be made to be less complicated, but underlying oversimplicity will not go away while Evernote is EverNote. A this will kill Evernote in the long run. Pretty much anybody can do a simple notes cloud service and they do so in numbers.

What I personally would be really happy to see is complex (not compilcated!) data model and simple (in a sense "not complicated") UI. Yes, it's a very hard task. But it's doable.

Well, Evernote as a company clearly does not think along this lines. They think people will continue to pay for their service for some reason. For some nobody-needs-them features? I think they wrong and Evernote will die. Very soon they will have nothing to offer to justify their premium prices.

My use of Evernote is very limited nowadays. I don't write anything in it, I use dedicated Markdown editors. For project notes I use OmniOutliner. For organizing files I use Spotlight and Leap (I live mainly on my Mac these days). For GTD I use Things. For Remiders - Due and Things. In principle, Evernote can be used for any of the tasks mentioned but the result will be order of magnitude worse. I did have tried. Evernote can be used for anything but is not really good at anything. And the core reason of it is Evernote's data model.

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

I tend to use Evernote for quick information-gathering or jotting down of ideas. I do the organizing of them into the complexity of my projects using Scrivener, and actual writing in Nota Bene (which has excellent data-organizing and retrieval facilities of its own). It's a complex work ecosystem (but not too complicated, at least for me); I don't mind having different tools for different purposes. But I realize that many would like to have, well, one ring to find them all....

As to simplifying the interface, I can assure you, based on what I have seen in these forums, that as soon as Evernote would simplify it, 500 users would post flaming angry messages asking, "Hey! Why did you morons take away my XXXX?!"

[mgsxx 16]

4 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

 But I realize that many would like to have, well, one ring to find them all....

Isn't it is the idea Evernote is promoting all these years? "Remember everything"? They failed this promise, both technically and ideologically. That's what I'm trying to explain.

 

4 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I tend to use Evernote for quick information-gathering or jotting down of ideas.

I do too. But for nothing else. What I'm trying to say is that many other solutions exist that can be used to do the same, and soon Evernote will find hard to justify it's prices. For many it's already so. Pay 30-70 bucks for some obscure not-really-needes features while there is free Apple Notes, Google Keep, Simplenote, Pocket, and *several* practically free Evernote knock-offs? No, it's not enough to survive IMO.

4 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

As to simplifying the interface, 

"Simplification" and "dumbing down" are very different things. Evernote tends to forget that. As the result they have lost many, many users that wanted not-that-dumb interface. The same users they now try to attract back, people that do plenty of work with information and ready to pay for adequate tools. Pro user will not be scared by complexity (do not confuse with complicatedness), they will glad to use it. As you say himself:

4 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

 It's a complex work ecosystem (but not too complicated, at least for me);

That's what real pro users are willing to deal with. My setup is just as complex AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEED. Complex setup for complex work. 

4 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

as soon as Evernote would simplify it, 500 users would post flaming angry messages asking, "Hey! Why did you morons take away my XXXX?!"

1. As I already said, simplifying does not necessarily mean removing features. It's common misconception.

2. Numbers of complains does not matter. What really matters is who's compaining: paying customers you are intend to live from or everybody else. You can't please everybody and should not waste efforts trying to do so. Choose your user and make her happy.

What I'm arguing about is that IMO Evernote chose wrong users to please. Evernote as it exists now is useful for casual uses like jotting down some ideas and web clips and that's pretty much all. You see that himself, don't you? And it just does not worth $70 a year given even the existing competition, don't mind the future.

[DTLow 5,749]

8 minutes ago, mgsxx said:

isn't is the idea Evernote is promoting all these years? "Remember everything"? They failed this promise, both technically and ideologically. That's what I'm trying to explain.

You haven't explained.  It works for me

8 minutes ago, mgsxx said:

And it just does not worth $70 a year given even the existing competition

Thats an opinion. I see value in the Evernote product.
If it isn't with $70, you shouldn't pay.
There are other tiers, and as you say ... the competition.  I'm not seeing why there's such an uproar.