JuliaL

Dude! A basic free version is the foundation of app culture -- "freeloaders" as you say help spread the reach of the program, THAT is the business model! -- they are the ones who spread the word about the app and help get it good enough to start selling. Dropbox didn't take away the free version they offered us in the beginning when they grew into the giant it is now, they actually thank their original free users and adopters. Once it's adopted, it gets paid users, of which Evernote had MILLIONS. I dont know exactly what the margins were, but it is not loss versus profit. It is a matter of whether the RATE of profit is enough for continued investment and stockshares. It's brutal, and I am not blaming the EN founders for selling, but Bending Spoons is a leader in this rat race. Cutting costs and increasing profits is the engine of capitalism, I know that. But there are lots of more independent companies in tech that appreciate the value of having a good service for a fair price. EN was one of those. The paid version was worth it for me -- once it went up, it wasn't, at least for now. I think it is bad for the company and morale (vis a vis PAID SUBSCRIBERS like me) to then jack up the price and force you out of the free version you had before, instead of just losing the bennies of paid plans.

It's not that it wasn't profitable, it just wasn't profitable enough to justify its existence to the VCs that poured in money for it to take over workforce organizing. I think your point is valid -- if you don't like it, switch. I get it. It went the way of the Silicon Valley, and I think that way sucks, that's all. I don't like the standard being grow, grow, grow, or just die.

Thanks LVL 5, I figured out you are correct in this, and I feel like I can keep using Evernote as the file cabinet it is for me, by deleting or editing old notes. I might as well export them into a database and just use it as reference for the dear departed days when I was in a groove as a personal paid subscriber.

Umm. There are a ton of apps that have usable free and paid versions and don't double the lowest paid price in one year at the same time as basically eliminating the free version. Like I said, I became a paid subscriber, and wish that Evernote would have a more basic paid plan, such as saying, in order to continue using Evernote for note taking and individual organizing -- very light demands from the company's resources. It's mean to kick off free users; SO MANY APPS still have free versions with limits that are not subsequently taken away. Plus it's dumb because the current free version won't attract new users because it is so limited people won't get to play around to see if it works for them. Also, Evernote has had millions of paid users for many years, they just didn't turn into a dominant work-force system or introduce anything ingenious enough to stamp out competitors. I don't know how much they were making made before Bending Spoons took over, but it was a profitable company, in the range of hundreds of millions in annual revenue. I am not saying Evernote needs to even keep having a free version. They could charge everyone something for all I care, just keep it relatively affordable within the subscription economy, where the only services you pay over $10 a month for are great video content or storage system/integrative software that we use for important stuff. I'd gladly pay something, but since I don't need Evernote, I was paying because I liked the vibe and design, and wanted to support the company. The last hike was a money grab, it's pretty plain. Bending Spoons bought it because they could afford to acquire a littler company and see if they could make some quick profits before really improving the product. Look I still love the program, I just want something that I can afford.

I just found this thread, and I am surprised to find very limited information about restrictions introduced at the time of the last price hike; I think storage limits and device limits are perfectly reasonable, but I think it is very against the spirit of EN to obliterate the basic function of note-taking. When I reverted to the free version, which I used until I became a paid subscriber in 2018, I could not create a single note, and was bombarded with UPGRADE pop-ups. Then I find I cannot even access the web client on a synced OR unsynced device. It's a big FU to offer a functional basic version for years and then force a rather costly upgrade to continue even using the service at all. I hope they turn this around; the program simply is not high functioning enough to justify having only premium subscriptions.