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I can't comment on the tech stack and all that, since I didn't see the internals, but I think Evernote deserves at least as much credit for saving Notion. Evern

I can't comment on the tech stack and all that, since I didn't see the internals, but I think Evernote deserves at least as much credit for saving Notion. Evernote used to have a real free plan and it cost only $3/month or something to go premium. Notion's "1000 free blocks" was confusing and honestly not that helpful, nobody knew who they were, and they were selling a premium plan for more than Evernote (who everyone knew and trusted). Notion's pricing and free plan strategy was a disaster from my perspective. It's understandable that this is an ad for Figma, but there were definitely other issues.

fastball 5y ago
Gonna have to disagree, I thought Notion's free-for-a-certain-number-of-blocks pricing was great. It let you try the platform without limits on functionality or limits on time. If you signed up for an account but then forgot about it and came back 3 months later it wouldn't be expired like a one month free trial would be. I think it makes a lot of sense for any platform based around content creation.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > thought Notion's free-for-a-certain-number-of-blocks pricing was great. It let you try the platform without limits on functionality The problem was that it was difficult to know what a block was or how much you could do with 1000 blocks until you had invested enough time in the platform to be able to estimate how many blocks you might need to evaluate it. Then there was additional mental overhead of trying to conserve blocks to extend your free trial. Do you implement something the correct way? Or do you maybe cut some corners to use fewer blocks so you can stay on the free plan a little longer? This extra decision making step added a little bit of fatigue to every interaction, which isn’t what you want when users are trying to evaluate your tools. Typical trials have well-defined and easy to understand limits in units that users already understand: Users, bytes, projects, documents. If users have to learn your project before understanding the terms, it’s mental added overhead.
  - manmal 5y ago
    You could always create another free workspace, and move pages between them. Once you got tired of that, you bought an account. Happened for us, and I think it was a great way of pulling us in.
  - fastball 5y ago
    I don't think the kind of people that are overly worried about not using up their free trial generally make good paying customers. Here was my experience: my team signed up, started using it, tried out all the different features (none of which were behind a paywall), didn't hit the 1000 block limit, and started paying within a week of signing up because it was exactly what we were looking for at the time.
    - itake 5y ago
      I was one of the people that saw the free 1000 blocks and chose not to signup, because I didn't understand what that gets me. I am currently happy on the free-tier and would cheer-lead internally at my job if there was interest to migrating to Notion.
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        I was one of the people that saw the 1000 block limit and just signed up to avoid the hassle of even thinking about it. I wonder how the total numbers of people that did each of these things compare.
  - hboon 5y ago
    Something related: more than a decade again, I was working as a sales engineer selling an enterprise search engine. A common pricing model we publish is charging $X per gigabyte of search index [1]. This sounds like similar rationale, because it feels like an honest pay as you use scheme. But it's hard for customers to understand how much they would be using. And of course since it's an enterprise solution, there is heavy switching costs playing into the equation — both into our product and if they adopt it, away from it. [1] The size of search index depended on the amount of content indexed as well as heavily on the features that were turned on. E.g. pre-index search-term expansion would increase the size by a factor, and so on.
temp8964 5y ago
Evernote has been really stupid recently. They created a new version of their desktop app which does not include all the functions of the previous app. I can't even set default font and size now. I had to use their legacy version. This totally breaks the trust and I am moving my stuff out and will no longer renew my subscription. Evernote also refuses to create multiple level of notebooks and manual order of notes. They also have strange user accounts on their user forum proactively denounce feature requests. Every time I search for a new feature request supported from many users will end up see a few familiar accounts claiming you don't need the new feature. I was like, who the heck are those people?
- dkarl 5y ago
  I don't participate in the Evernote forums, but I have been a heavy user of Evernote since 2014, and I've seen other simple apps that I liked and depended on go into an obnoxious feature spiral as they desperately tried to unlock a higher level of market share, leading to degradation of usability and reliability. I'm happy for Evernote to let the product "stagnate" in a form that is useful and reliable for me, so I can understand why some people are vocal about Evernote not expanding their scope. However, if they take away my ability to set the default font size, or create multiple notebooks, I will probably leave as well. Taking away multiple notebooks would break a lot of my use cases. Maybe I am already using the legacy version?
  - temp8964 5y ago
    Sorry with the confusion. "multiple levels of notebooks" is a separated topic. And I forgot to type "levels of"... But if you didn't notice the change of default font and font size, may be you are using the legacy version.
- fencepost 5y ago
  Evernote has been really stupid recently. They created a new version of their desktop app which does not include all the functions of the previous app. Sounds like what Microsoft did with OneNote the Windows 10/Microsoft Store app vs the desktop application with significantly more capability though I believe the Win10/Store version is expected to catch up at some point.
andreilys 5y ago
100%. Encountering the “1000 free blocks” after I ported over all my notes left a really bad taste in my mouth. Ive since deleted the account and moved to an internal note taking system. Anytime someone asks me about Notion I actively recommend against using it.
- mxwsn 5y ago
  Notion has been free for personal use with unlimited blocks for a year or two now.
- ar_lan 5y ago
  That restriction is gone. Notion is hands-down the best note taking system I've ever seen/used.
  - adkadskhj 5y ago
    What makes it best at note taking in your eyes?
    - moooo99 5y ago
      Not OP, but it's definitely the incredible flexibility of the system, especially the databases. I basically track everything, from sideproject progress, CRM, personal challenges, workouts, books read, personal expenses, whishlists and todo with Notion in an unique way. While I'll be the first one to admit that the flexibility can be overwhelming sometimes, for basically every common usecase there are templates or YouTube tutorials
      - distrill 5y ago
        I agree with all of this, and I want to add that it's truly cross platform. Their web app is the same experience as their native app (this suggests electron but I'm not an electron hater and the native app is not a resource hog). It also has native builds across platforms, including mobile which is also well done. There are other good note taking apps out there and there, and there are other note taking apps out there that solve the device problem I struggle so much with. But notion is the best note taking app with the best cross device/platform support I've come across.
joexuyi 5y ago
"nobody knew who they were" - https://twitter.com/ivanhzhao https://twitter.com/ivanhzhao

fastball 5y ago

Gonna have to disagree, I thought Notion's free-for-a-certain-number-of-blocks pricing was great. It let you try the platform without limits on functionality or limits on time. If you signed up for an account but then forgot about it and came back 3 months later it wouldn't be expired like a one month free trial would be. I think it makes a lot of sense for any platform based around content creation.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> thought Notion's free-for-a-certain-number-of-blocks pricing was great. It let you try the platform without limits on functionality The problem was that it was difficult to know what a block was or how much you could do with 1000 blocks until you had invested enough time in the platform to be able to estimate how many blocks you might need to evaluate it. Then there was additional mental overhead of trying to conserve blocks to extend your free trial. Do you implement something the correct way? Or do you maybe cut some corners to use fewer blocks so you can stay on the free plan a little longer? This extra decision making step added a little bit of fatigue to every interaction, which isn’t what you want when users are trying to evaluate your tools. Typical trials have well-defined and easy to understand limits in units that users already understand: Users, bytes, projects, documents. If users have to learn your project before understanding the terms, it’s mental added overhead.
- manmal 5y ago
  You could always create another free workspace, and move pages between them. Once you got tired of that, you bought an account. Happened for us, and I think it was a great way of pulling us in.
- fastball 5y ago
  I don't think the kind of people that are overly worried about not using up their free trial generally make good paying customers. Here was my experience: my team signed up, started using it, tried out all the different features (none of which were behind a paywall), didn't hit the 1000 block limit, and started paying within a week of signing up because it was exactly what we were looking for at the time.
  - itake 5y ago
    I was one of the people that saw the free 1000 blocks and chose not to signup, because I didn't understand what that gets me. I am currently happy on the free-tier and would cheer-lead internally at my job if there was interest to migrating to Notion.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I was one of the people that saw the 1000 block limit and just signed up to avoid the hassle of even thinking about it. I wonder how the total numbers of people that did each of these things compare.
- hboon 5y ago
  Something related: more than a decade again, I was working as a sales engineer selling an enterprise search engine. A common pricing model we publish is charging $X per gigabyte of search index [1]. This sounds like similar rationale, because it feels like an honest pay as you use scheme. But it's hard for customers to understand how much they would be using. And of course since it's an enterprise solution, there is heavy switching costs playing into the equation — both into our product and if they adopt it, away from it. [1] The size of search index depended on the amount of content indexed as well as heavily on the features that were turned on. E.g. pre-index search-term expansion would increase the size by a factor, and so on.

temp8964 5y ago

Evernote has been really stupid recently. They created a new version of their desktop app which does not include all the functions of the previous app. I can't even set default font and size now. I had to use their legacy version. This totally breaks the trust and I am moving my stuff out and will no longer renew my subscription. Evernote also refuses to create multiple level of notebooks and manual order of notes. They also have strange user accounts on their user forum proactively denounce feature requests. Every time I search for a new feature request supported from many users will end up see a few familiar accounts claiming you don't need the new feature. I was like, who the heck are those people?

dkarl 5y ago
I don't participate in the Evernote forums, but I have been a heavy user of Evernote since 2014, and I've seen other simple apps that I liked and depended on go into an obnoxious feature spiral as they desperately tried to unlock a higher level of market share, leading to degradation of usability and reliability. I'm happy for Evernote to let the product "stagnate" in a form that is useful and reliable for me, so I can understand why some people are vocal about Evernote not expanding their scope. However, if they take away my ability to set the default font size, or create multiple notebooks, I will probably leave as well. Taking away multiple notebooks would break a lot of my use cases. Maybe I am already using the legacy version?
- temp8964 5y ago
  Sorry with the confusion. "multiple levels of notebooks" is a separated topic. And I forgot to type "levels of"... But if you didn't notice the change of default font and font size, may be you are using the legacy version.
fencepost 5y ago
Evernote has been really stupid recently. They created a new version of their desktop app which does not include all the functions of the previous app. Sounds like what Microsoft did with OneNote the Windows 10/Microsoft Store app vs the desktop application with significantly more capability though I believe the Win10/Store version is expected to catch up at some point.

andreilys 5y ago

100%. Encountering the “1000 free blocks” after I ported over all my notes left a really bad taste in my mouth. Ive since deleted the account and moved to an internal note taking system. Anytime someone asks me about Notion I actively recommend against using it.

mxwsn 5y ago
Notion has been free for personal use with unlimited blocks for a year or two now.
ar_lan 5y ago
That restriction is gone. Notion is hands-down the best note taking system I've ever seen/used.
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  What makes it best at note taking in your eyes?
  - moooo99 5y ago
    Not OP, but it's definitely the incredible flexibility of the system, especially the databases. I basically track everything, from sideproject progress, CRM, personal challenges, workouts, books read, personal expenses, whishlists and todo with Notion in an unique way. While I'll be the first one to admit that the flexibility can be overwhelming sometimes, for basically every common usecase there are templates or YouTube tutorials
    - distrill 5y ago
      I agree with all of this, and I want to add that it's truly cross platform. Their web app is the same experience as their native app (this suggests electron but I'm not an electron hater and the native app is not a resource hog). It also has native builds across platforms, including mobile which is also well done. There are other good note taking apps out there and there, and there are other note taking apps out there that solve the device problem I struggle so much with. But notion is the best note taking app with the best cross device/platform support I've come across.

joexuyi 5y ago

"nobody knew who they were" - https://twitter.com/ivanhzhao https://twitter.com/ivanhzhao