2 hours ago, DTLow said:

This is in regards to disaster and abandoning the Evernote ship.

I've made no decision on replacement software; I know I can export in html format (Mac) and have continued access to my notes. I run this weekly as part of my data backups - a 25 minute process

My plan is for zero downtime.

You employ zero people? Correct?

That is the difference. If you research NOW which software to use after Evernote tanks, you spend time for something that might not happen. Better to spend the time on now's emergencies. If you employed people, however, you'd want to do a bit of research first because you pay the employees even if they are texting friends while you find an Evernote replacement. 

16 hours ago, s2sailor said:

I know you are aware of this, but for others that may not be, as a reminder, that is not true if you have any local notebooks.  It is our responsibility to have backups of those.

It is also prudent to know WHICH software you are going to use if there is more than only your time at stake (i.e. employ ant least one employee). If you don't, when everything drops, you are left with a situation where you are paying employees to sit around while you scramble like mad to find and transition to your replacement software. 

Now, admittedly, Evernote has never been able to break into selling to corporations with any significance, so this is probably only a major deal for those small companies that have built their business with Evernote as one of the foundations. But, perversely, those same companies are the ones who struggle the most with cash flow, and even 3-5 days of downtime could kill them. 

20 hours ago, jefito said:

Nice "but-what-about". Go ahead and source your claim that Evernote thinks "folders are evil". Bet you can't. And source my claim that I "know nothing about" marketing while you're at it. Then realize that I also never said that marketing does not apply to Evernote. Is making stuff up just what you do?

Re marketing: I am not a marketer, but I understand its usefulness. Many products, including software -- which I develop, and yes, I deal with our marketers -- require both marketing and technical aspects, and in the right balance. Marketing a technically deficient product will likely run out of steam before too long (i.e., can't deliver the goods, at least in my business, geographic information and analysis), while an under-marketed product that is otherwise technically superior may never get off the ground. I know enough about marketing to know, and be able to freely admit, that I'm not an expert, but that doesn't mean I know nothing, nor do I think it's valueless. It's just not my gig, mush as tech is not yours.

Anyways, riddle me this: Why in the world would adding nested notebooks "water down their branding"? Makes no sense. They already have notebooks. Their branding says nothing about nesting either way. If they added it, lots of Evernote users would be happy, but many would be none the wiser. The simple user metaphor of notes, notebooks, and tags would remain.

1. The fact is that Evernote claims tags are better than nested folders, and refuses to implement them despite a decade of demand, says volumes.

2. So, you have now said that you are not an expert in marketing, but taken umbrage with me saying you said you don't know marketing. So... are you claiming to straddle the fence and know a little? A little and two smidges? Which is it? 

3. You were the one who felt that I was reading too much into Evernote being branded and marketed. Which is it. Are they big into branding or not. Make up your mind please, and let us know WHICH position you are going to commit to.

4. And that shows why you don't understand even the basics of marketing and branding. As I have repeatedly stated, Evernote is marketed to a specific market segment--the kind of people who reject dogma and traditional ways of doing things. If you think employee-designated work hours, with time off for Frisbee tournaments, and open office space with flexible groups, think dress codes are for boring stuffy old people, and don't understand why "the suits" fixate so much on "profits", you are an Evernote ideal target. I mean, come on--every time they show a workplace environment in their marketing it looks like some hipster 20-something is working on the latest killer app. Every other database software in the world, down to and including Gmail, includes nested folders AND tags. That means their either created Evernote with software devs who had never SEEN a database before, or they made a decision to leave it out of the equation.

There is no middle ground on that last one. By default, any software dev would include nested folders--unless they were told to keep them out. And the reaosn why they were told to keep them out is so Evernote could say "And no rigid structure--we have found a better way..."

TAGS??? Mandatory tags are somehow better than nested folders and tags???

Absolutely, if you are striving for product differentiation to brand your product... 

didn't say they were better for the user--they are simply better for Evernote because now it can stand up and say, "Look we are BETTER because we are DIFFERENT!"

And, it has worked. No one in here can give a single reason why nested folders and tags are somehow inferior to only having tags--oh, but they will claim the Evernote way is better, or "just as good".

They bought into the marketing, and are now committed to it...

7 hours ago, Metrodon said:

The things you learn here....

I guess their highest ever enterprise numbers are the first step to that failure. The new pro is targeted at a very specific group of users and just comparing the specs of hardware is a really poor method.

Anyway, pick a burger and sauce you like.

I remember back in the 90s when the MAC/PC debate was still being fought. Most of my friends used PC--but one was a Mac devotee. He would talk about the fact that the Mac was a better machine. We would hit back with the fact that it was way more expensive, and PCs had more hardware options. He would comment on the fact that it cost more, but it was better, and you got what you paid for.

Debate went nowhere.

Then one day we were all sitting around discussing how much we LOVED playing Doom, and co-op and deathmatch rocked. He sat their quietly. Finally one of us asked him if he liked playing Doom. He said that Doom wasn't out on the Mac yet, but it was being coded. 

When we asked when it was going to be released for the Mac, his answer was, "Next year, sometime."

He never defended his Mac again.... 

It isn't what the machine can theoretically do that makes it valuable, it is what you can get done with it that makes it valuable. 

7 hours ago, gazumped said:

Wow - so much unfounded gossip,  so little time:  lessee

1. Evernote (they said) pre-staffed for an expansion that didn't happen in that year.  Rather than have people sitting around on their thumbs,  they let surplus staff go.  Evernote's tweets about the circumstances then included comments to the effect that they were increasingly profitable and wanted to stay that way.
2. Which 'trade mags'?  They're remarkably badly informed if they think that
   • Evernote syncs everyone on a Tuesday
   • Losing the servers disables the data stored on every users' hard drive and (if they're sensible) backups.
   • Evernote 'closing down' would necessarily shutter the (Google based) servers
   • Users would be unable to use the 'import' feature in (currently) a few competing products
3. And last but by no means least:  that 200M+ users would not be hotly sought after by averyone else in the note-taking market and offered all sorts of "Try me! Try me!" deals to take over their data.

I get that Evernote is not everyone's favourite product,  and that this is a useful channel to blow off a bit of steam about reasons for going elsewhere.  But for pity's sake: to borrow a quote from Bill Shakespeare: "Stand not upon the order of your going,. But have your winge,  and go!"

1: Here is what REALLY happened with the layoffs: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/18/evernote-just-slashed-54-jobs-or-15-percent-of-its-workforce/

2: A. Not what I wrote. Not even close. You need to take some classes in reading comprehension skills

2. B. Those serves drop, and how are you going to synchronize your various devices? You better have a plan ready because IF you are more than a single user--but rather a company using Evernote Commercially--you need your plan in place or the dropping of servers will cripple your business. (I I realize working for an actual company of several employees is an alien concept to you, but having Evernote's servers drop would be a catastrophe for any such endeavor.)

2.C. You got any evidence to indicate that if Evernote closes the Evernote servers will stay up streaming your data, I would just LOVE to see it.  

2.D. Tell that to someone who mistakenly didn't prep for it and now their 7-person sales team is left without access to their data. Sure, you could have everything up and running in a week, and that might only have cost your company a few tens of thousands. No big deal, right? 

3. It takes a bankruptcy court months to approve any transactions. That means those "try me" offers would be delayed for months. You wanna sit around waiting 3-4 months to restart your business, you are MORE than welcome to.

Biting sarcasm aside, only a FOOL does not have a disaster backup plan in place for ALL of their important data and processes from the moment they start to use the software. 

5 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

 

...

Evernote  may have 200+ million users world-wide but in real terms its current usability  is flawed in so many ways that no business I know of could use it.

 Original data embedded in the  database is the road to hell in terms of PC capability (secure data storage!) in conjunction with web synchronisation. I am not speaking of 100,000 notes with trifling content such as single pdf docs scanned or generated for web usage but notes that border on the single file  limit.  Creating notes linking to external storage? API limited to Google Drive. Dropbox, OneDrive and a whole of lot of others? Fail. 

In fact, for synchronised document storage on any of the reliable cloud servers nobody needs Evernote.  These cloud servers index content at speeds which Evernote just cannot match. 

...

Just my few cents, so to speak. 

I would agree. The people at Evernote convinced themselves that they had a "new way of doing things", and they were somewhat correct. Evernote is to traditional database software what Spanx are to a tuxedo. The problem is that trying to convince the business world that your new different way of doing things is better requires you to solve problems--not simply have people do things differently. Evernote is great for single users who enjoy the ... loosely organied way of storing ad retrieving data. Trying to entice the big players is not working for them. Look at Evernote's own list of companies it is used by:

https://evernote.com/business/customer-stories

I see one company with over 500 employees, one with 100-500. No mention in either of those how many people actually use Evernote for more than the most basic of tasks. And from there, we start to hit companies with a handful of employees. When your company is bragging about being used by companies that don't even have 10 employees, you are hurting. Plus, laying off 15% of your workforce (Evernote--less than a year ago) during a BOOM economy, does not inspire confidence. The trade mags have already been advising people to follow protocols to be ready for that random Tuesday morning when the Evernote servers are permanently down for Chapter 7.

This discussion has made me go back and re-look at Notion. Leaving all my data in the Evernote basket just does not seem prudent...

1 hour ago, jefito said:

Branding? We're doing branding now? Really? Sure, we all know that branding is important, but Evernote's branding remains, at heart, "Remember everything and access it wherever you are", not "Organize your stuff without folders. Really." But sure, let's skip all of that, and hand-wave off to a completely off-topic lesson on the power of marketing over fact & reality, but which wholly unrelated to Evernote...

You simultaneously claim to know nothing about it, and yet are certain it does not apply...

I applaud the skill of your cognitive dissonance mechanism!

1 hour ago, s2sailor said:

Ok, so everything to you looks like a branding exercise, understandable.  EN may never implement nested notebooks, but will that be because of some great EN branding plan or fear in alienating the taggers? ... nah.

ALL successful companies focus HEAVILY on branding. And by successful I mean grow larger than a mom and pop corner store. You identify your target audience based upon a slew of factors, and design a product for them. 

If you are smart, you never, ever water down your brand. A lot of companies will try to do such, and they wind up doing what is known as "Straddling". This is when you are trying to keep your original customers happy, while recruiting new customers in different markets. It usually results in mediocre sales in both markets, and company death. Most companies adopt an entirely new product line or company name to be able to pull this off.  A top-shelf food item will create an entirely different brand to sell a virtually identical product at 2/3rds the price. Why do they do this? Because one segment of their market will purchase the more expensive item to their family gets "the best", while another segment prides itself on purchasing the "more economical yet just as good" item, and thus saving money. 

And companies know if they also sell the cheaper brand, that cheapness "taint" will spill over to their more expensive product, and drive the top-shelf customers away. No one is stupid enough to to pay more for a product that they suspect (know) is the same as a cheaper product. but the top shelf customers are not satisfied if they purchase the cheaper item, so they will purchase a different item, telling themselves that THIS new brand is top quality. 

People do NOT make purchases based upon taste alone. Let's face it--most store bought food is average. But they WILL make purchases to satisfy their own sense of self-identification. 

They will spend a fortune on that variable. Standard marketing ploy--offer them 3 comparable products. Say... egg cookers. Vary the features only slightly. You are appealing to 3 different market segments. (There are more, but we will not discuss the early adopters, seekers of reliability, etc, etc.. We are focused on PRICE segments) Make the cheap on $15. Make the expensive one $29. Where do you price the middle one?

$25.

Some people will ALWAYS buy the cheapest one. Some people will ALWAYS by the most expensive. That middle group? They will almost always purchase the MIDDLE product--so why would you price it  in the middle? $22 would be halfway between the two ends, but you can make $3 more per unit without seriously affecting sales by charging $25. 

I remember shopping trips with my wife where she would want the "name brand" because it "was better". I would then pull out the private label store brand, show her the list of ingredients (identical), the percentages of each (identical), and then show her the city of manufacture (identical). Sometimes it would even say "Manufactured by ...." and the manufacturing company would be the same for both. 

Let's see, same ingredients in the same ratios made by the same factory...

It was a sheer display of stupidity on my part thinking she would ever choose the IDENTICAL store brand. She was in the "brand name" segment, and nothing was going to change her mind. She could have seem the batch of Tums bottles intermixed with Meijer bottles and being filled by the same batches out of the same automated hoppers, and she still would have wanted the 30% more expensive Tums. 

The reason I see branding everywhere, is because it IS everywhere. We teach our students to never, ever, dilute their brand. Never change their brand unless it is to become even MORE niche. If they have an opportunity to corner the market in a new market segment, you make a new brand to move that product.

I have never heard of a major software company that could pull off the multiple-brands for similar products. Websites do it like mad. There are a handful of parent companies that own dozens of "competing" dating websites.

Now, having said that, I don't know of any, but that doesn't mean there are any. Maybe someone has pulled it off and I haven't heard about it yet.

But I do know this--never mess with your own brand. If Coca Cola couldn't get away with it with "New Coke", YOU sure as hell can't with whatever it is you are marketing! 

Here is an easy to read (and somewhat humorous) article on the subject. 

https://brandmarketingblog.com/articles/branding-definitions/what-is-brand-dilution/

35 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

I think you are way over thinking and misinterpreting this decision.  Evernote architected a solution in the beginning that did not include nested folders.  We can all insert our own opinion as to why here.  The no nested folders argument started to ramp up and Evernote hacked in stacks which provides a folder collection level.  That helped some.  I find them handy, but it is not a solution for those that want deeply nested folders.  Evernote has said (somewhere) that adding more layers would be a non-trivial architecture change, so we haven't seen anything more since then.  

I've got to believe that (certainly by now) EN realizes that many want nested folders.  Whether adding that in would add to their bottom line ... who knows.  So far this hasn't been prioritized.  Maybe the effort this year to unify the app experience and address long standing problems may involve some back end architecture changes that would allow nested folders ... one can hope.  I really don't care either way, but it would end this long standing debate ... and that I do hope for.

I teach branding and marketing to college business students. Everything that Evernote produces--down to the alliances they have made with third-party vendors are designed to appeal to their target audience. They will NOT be bringing in Nested Notebooks because it would water down their brand and thus alienate their target audience. 

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

If nesting of folders would solve anything...

Others may see it differently.

Therein lies the problem--again. Over the past decade the forums have had people screaming/begging for nested folders, and other people say they are not needed. 

The two sides boil down to:

1. People who could really use the usefulness of nested folders.

2. People who don't need nested folders, and think anyone who wants nested folders is screwed in the head.

You know what I don't need? Lipstick and nail polish. But the fact I don't need lipstick and nail polish does not mean that some people don't really, really, really want the end result they can achieve with lipstick and nail polish! I could argue that they could smile more or wear different clothes to make themselves more attractive, and rub cherry Kool Aid into their lips to emulate lipstick, and use a colored Sharpee to emulate nail polish. but I would never claim--just because I don't need lipstick or nail polish--that those two products not solve any needs.

You actually started out your treatise by saying that nesting does NOTHING, and then, as an after thought, throw out the "others may see it differently."

No, others DO see it differently. Other people process information and work differently than you. And just because you don't need nested folders does not mean that having them would be pointless even for other people. 

2 hours ago, Metrodon said:

Probably the most frontier gibberish I've seen posted on here for quite some time.

Evernote are a business,

Right.

5 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

Luckily Evernote never ventured beyond that one single piece of software. 

However, the new kid on the block (no insult intended @Ian Small  ☺️) rekindled hope for Evernote's future. 

Who is to say that the universally accepted system of \ root \ folders \ subfolders \ etc. will not make its way into Evernote?  In fact,  Evernote has no other option, technically speaking. 

Don't kid yourself--Evernote will insist that Nested folders are evil and not good for their product up to, and past, the day the file Chapter 7. The reason for this is branding. Evernote is trying to say "You can run a small business, or the Department of Defense itself, if you switch over to our loosely-organized unstructured way of doing things. Look, we're cool--we've got tablets you can write on that feed your words directly into Evernote--what could be more Bohemian than that!"

The leaving out of nested folders is, simply put, marketing. For people who want their data left free and flowing like the clouds, Evernote is digital crack. It makes them feel all warm and tingly inside. 

Now, they could add nested folders, but they have resisted doing so for over a decade. They have seen their disciples preach the doctrine of tags being "just as good" to the nested-folder people each and every time anyone wanders into these forums wanting nested folders. Think for a second what it would mean to the loyal if Evernote added in nested folders. Yes, the true believers could simply not use them. But, think a little deeper--it would mean that Evernote was officially endorsing the idea that tags were not a substitute for nested folders, and for over a decade, the loyal were championing Evernote's official stance, only to have Evernote sell them out.

Don't kid yourself--the people in here who are constantly saying tags are just as good as nested folders have put skin into he game. They have a reputation to consider. 

Evertnote adds nested folders, and the debate is over--the nested folders crowd was right all along--rigid structure IS a better option in a lot of circumstances.

In the eyes of a lot of Evernote users, Evernote will no longer be a "new kind of information storage, processing, and retrieval tool for a new generation"--instead, it will simply become something to invest your feelings into as much as, oh, say the latest version of Word. 

Evernote isn't going to do that--right now they have people who are loyal to their software because of philosophical reasons. There is no other reason for the loyal to feel a need to "correct" someone whenever they say, "I'd really find nested folders more useful." I mean, think about it--if someone was to post in a Word support forum that they wish Word included direct stylus input, translating cursive into standard text input, none of us would feel compelled to say, "You really need to learn to like using the keyboard--it is WAY better, and I have PROOF!"

No, we'd probably just skip over the post because the message did not affect us directly.

But posting you want nested folders does affect the loyal directly. They want you to learn to do it THEIR way--which of course, they can "prove" is sooooo much better.

Evernote has branded itself as being anti-nesting. They are not likely to change that brand image anytime soon. 

4 hours ago, CalS said:

Not so sure of that relative to the EN schema.  File might work better.  In my view, not having access to the internals, EN is primarily comprised of one record type, the note.  And those notes are stored in what EN calls a notebook, hence file.  There's some other stuff but the meat and potatoes is the note and all its metadata.

One can do this, but it is still a hack for anyone wanting a pure hierarchical notebook structure.  It only pi$$e$ people off when you bring it up.    

He thinks he is the only person in the Universe who gets to decide what is best for them. 

I don't know if he is a troll, or far, far worse, sincere.

At any rate, some other user alerted me that you can ignore people on the forums, so he is gone.

9 hours ago, DTLow said:

Whatever
This has nothing to do with folder support in Evernote.

Give us facts, not your vomit of unrelated posts.
You pointed me to the database and  folders/"record depositories".  I looked and found nothing there.
What else do you have.

Here is what I have:

https://www.frankbuck.org/new-to-evernote-the-notebooks-you-need/

https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-evernote-for-GTD/

https://craftindustryalliance.org/use-evernote-organize-business-tasks/

https://www.pcmag.com/feature/323014/36-tips-every-evernote-user-must-know  (Pretty sad when PC Mag is convinced that Evernote Notebooks are folders, eh?)

https://www.schneiderb.com/6-tips-for-getting-started-with-evernote/

https://connect.edleadersnetwork.org/blogs/frank-buck/2014/03/05/evernote-suggestions-for-notebooks

https://brettkelly.org/evernote-not-notes-app-ios9-el-capitan/

http://libguides.nus.edu.sg/evernote

https://www.quora.com/Evernote-product-Tags-or-folders-Tags-AND-folders-Neither-tags-NOR-folders-Why

http://www.techademic.co/blog/2015/6/evernote-for-academics-tagging-vs-notebooks (OMG! 

Oh heck, let me just post the whole Google search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=evernote+"folders"+called+notebooks&ei=DnPyXPaPJISGtQXdpbOwDQ&start=10&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwj2zoXhp8jiAhUEQ60KHd3SDNYQ8tMDCMYB&biw=1896&bih=867

Now, as I said, The rest of the WORLD understands that "Notebooks" as Evernote uses the term is "Folders" as the rest of the world uses the term. It is just a little marketing differentiation tactic to call them "notebooks" and appear to people to be more free-form. (Folders are what those stuff business people use, while creative people use notebooks!). But, your last 4 posts have been evidence you are one of those people who feel that if you don't get in the last word, you are giving up and allowing the other person to win, and if you get in the last word, you de facto claim victory.

I am MORE than willing to allow others to weigh the evidence *I* have presented in my posts that folders and notebooks are the same thing (except Evernote has nerfed their folder abilities, of course) and let them make up their own minds. But to appease you, here is what I am offering--you can say whatever you want on the subject, no matter how much it does not address the issue at hand, or align with facts, and declare victory.

You won't have won, any more than notebooks are not folders,  but if your pride demands it, I will allow you to convince yourself you have won.

So, just like an SNL Celebrity Jeopardy skit where Alex Trebek tells the contestants that whatever they write down, they win, I am telling you to post whatever you want, and tell yourself you have won because you have got in the final word, even if it wrong.  

Proceed.

7 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I am hung up on the facts, Notes have fields called Notebook, Tag, Title, ...

You're picking one of the fields, and claiming "that's a folder"

The English language does not bend to the marketing strategies of Evernote, nor does my language usage.

You can accept that, or not. Either way, the English language, and my language usage, remains unchanged. 

16 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I have database experience, and access to the Evernote database on my Mac; no folders

Would "record depositories" be tables;
- there's a Note table, with fields (columns); Notebook, Tags, .....

I've already posted the definition of a folder when used in computers.

You are hung-up on the fact that because Evernote has branded them as "notebooks" and thus that is the only word in the Universe that can describe them.

Chrysler branded their products as having "Rich Corinthian Leather" interiors. Ricardo Montalban was the spokesperson. Major ad campaign. Ran for YEARS!

In 1987, on David Letterman, Mr. Montalban admitted "Rich Corinthian Leather" didn't mean anything--it was just a branding name. (Fast Forward to about 8:40 in)

"Notebooks" is just an Evernote branding name for folders.  

You call it "Rich Corinthian Leather" if you want--I'll call it leather because that is all that it is. You call them Notebooks if you want, I'll call them folders, because that is all they are. 

4 hours ago, DTLow said:

It actually works better if we all use the same names  😊

As I said, "what they are" is  field-1 and field-2

Listen, you accused me of being wrong because Evernote doesn't have folders. I pointed out that they ARE folders, in addition to whatever marketing term Evernote has some up with to refer to them by. Just because Microsoft decided to brand its operating system as "Widnows" doesn't mean it stopped being an OS. Evernote, in a branding/marketing decision decided to call its folders "notebooks". You know what? They are still folders.  

And, it is true that this works better if we all use the same nomenclature. So, since we are discussing a Database program, and the commonly accepted name used to describe those record depositories* in database programs are folders, perhaps you should change so we are all on the same page...

Nah, I can't do that. To tell you that you need to change the phrase you are using would be every bit as wrong as you were when you got snitty over the use of the word folder, because at the end of the day, despite your protests, BOTH labels are correct. As would be repository, group, storage place, archive, site, spot, and a whole host of other terms. And unlike you, when you say "notebook" I know you mean folder, but are using the term Evernote used to brand its product with differentiation, and we are referring to the same thing. 

So, you call them notebooks. I will call them folders. We will both be correct.

*Gasp! Another name!

16 minutes ago, DTLow said:

If you're talking about notebooks and tags, they're just field-1 and field-2 in the note metadata

Yes, they can call them whatever they want.

 A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

And the rest of us can call them what they are according to the English language. 

15 hours ago, jefito said:

Every single thing you have addressed here has been previously addressed. Multiple times. Over 10 years worth of posts. And better.

signed,

The nested notebooks topic/feature request

And you are about the 500th person to make that comment. 

Kind of ironic, eh?

1 hour ago, catsknit said:

Actually that's a perfect example of why tagging works much better than nested folders.  On my work computer...

Oh God, another person who thinks their preferences are gospel...

14 hours ago, DTLow said:

Thank you for the folder definition.  As noted,  folders are not supported in Evernote (failing?)

We get Notebook and Tag fields

>>emulating folders via tags

We can also emulate folders with notebooks; but only 2 levels

The GUI is the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar

They can call them whatever they want--that does not force the English Language to change to accommodate them. 

Do tell, if they called their program "code instructions" would you claim it was no longer software?

I mean, that is what you are arguing--down to the point that a book publisher can call the printed things they publish "hornwogos" and you would argue they are, therefore, not books, and all of us must go to the "hornwogo store" to purchase them.  

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

This is wrong; both things are not the same.

I'm not familiar with other software using the term Notebook.  
This discussion is about Evernote
- There's no support for Folders
- Notes have two metadata fields; Notebooks and Tags.  

Tags fit the definition of "a hierarchical structure".  
Not by design, but the folder emulation is possible.

No, This discussion is NOT "about Evernote". You do not own the discussion, and thus you alone do not get to decide what is and is not discussed.

EVERYONE gets to contribute as they see fit.

And many of us are discussing the failings of Evernote, as well as why those failings are not corrected by emulating folders via tags. I am one of them. And as I have repeatedly stated, emulation does not work well for some of us. Thus, we are discussing that failing.

As for your insistence that there are no "folders" in Evernote, I refer you to techopedia:

Folder

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1836/folder

You can call an automobile a car if you wish, or an automobile if you wish, but to insist that it is wrong to call it an automobile because one manufacturer always refers to its automobiles as cars, and thus argue they do not manufacture automobiles, is not correct.

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

You seem to use the two terms interchangeably.

For sure, Evernote notes have a notebook field.  Is there some reason you think these are folders?

Because the two two terms are used interchangeably in the world of database software. One company calls them folders. Another calls them notebooks. Both things are the same. They are a hierarchical structure designed to emulate a traditional file cabinet structure. (Or, LOC book filing system...) Why Evernote decided to call them notebooks is not something I have no knowledge of. If you want to know why they call them notebooks, you could ask them. 

1 hour ago, chronistin said:

That's exactly what I don't understand. If an app does not do what I need it to do, and developers have made it clear that this will not change in the future, I'll go and use a different app. Not complain about it for a decade. It's not like there are no apps out there that do it exactly the way you want.

Repeating the same thing over and over again won't get you anywhere - EN is not a democracy, it's a privately owned company, and that means the software will be developed as the owners decide.

I've already addressed those issues. In this thread. Today.

13 minutes ago, chronistin said:

Somewhere in these forums, it has been explained thoroughly that the underlying logic of EN is not hierarchical, therefore nested folders would be a ressource-eating add on.

But that's beside the point. Because even if the one and only reason for not having nested folders is that EN developers do not want to provide nested folders, there will be no nested folders. So why continue beating a dead horse? 

1. No, It has been explained, it has argued by the fans that it would eat resources. To anyone who champions that, I would steer you to the other posts in here where people have pointed out nesting notebooks are nothing more than an additional field in a record--namely when pulling in records to display for the user it looks at that field of what the parent-folder is, and then displays them accordingly. 

Most of the good ones even store the records in that order so the cost overhead when retrieving the records is precisely zero nanoseconds. (After the few millisecond overhead of sorting the record when it gets placed for the first time.

Oh, and here is the really great part--if you never used nested notebooks, you would not lose that thousandth of a second we lose when our record gets shuffled to its new location.   

2. As for why beat the dead horse, yes, I will ask you why are you doing that? Why do you feel a burning need to have the people on my side be quiet and never express our opinions? We've been doing it for 10 years, and just are not stopping any time soon.