
The Evernote detractors camp has grown to epic proportions in the past year, which is warranted, but I strongly disagree with the contingent of detractors who claim that Evernote's downfall was having the audacity to raise their prices, or limit the scope of their free version. Note taking and search should be an operating system level thing. Palm, Apple, Microsoft and everyone else with a dog in the game wanted it to happen.

This had been the dream in the 80's, 90's and 00's. To some extent it is a remnant of a product that never was going to happen - the handwriting input. We probably would never have heard of them had they not taken the VC money and rammed the product down our throats with the marketing budget. Evernote is a bit like that in that it has features most but not all don't want to pay for. As it turned out nobody needed the MS-DOS TSR calculator with as many memory stores as hotkeys. But once upon a time people tried to make people pay for these things. Some things are table stakes with an operating system. And now people can just take pictures on their phones it is an even harder sell.

I used to work with a guy who was teased for using OneNote and wanting the company to pay for his special program (when there was a perfectly good stationary cupboard). To most people who have some system - bookmarks in the browser, a paper notebook, emails to themselves or whatever, there is no seeking out of the superior Evernote solution. I have met someone at the other extreme, using git and 'vi' for notes including 'must buy milk' type of things. Then there is Notepad.exe in Windows that actually does it for some. Out of those that do there are perfectly good things like paper notepads that are fit for purpose.

In fact most people don't take notes at all. 99% of the population don't take notes with a fancy paid for application.
