This. I've either got to trust Evernote, Keep, Box, or something, because I'm sure as hell not going to spend the time to build out a feature-complete implement

This. I've either got to trust Evernote, Keep, Box, or something, because I'm sure as hell not going to spend the time to build out a feature-complete implementation of a note-taking tool that won't be a royal pain in the ass to work around. If Google really derives that much value from knowing that I need a bottle of wine and some deli meatballs at the grocery store and I need to call my doctor to reschedule my appointment next week, by all means, please take that information and do something useful. Here's the reality of the situation: - If the service gives me recommendations, that's not something you could easily roll yourself. There's always some sort of dependency, like Solr or ElasticSearch that you'd have to set up. I don't have the time or motivation to stand that nonsense up on my own VPS. - I would almost guarantee that Keep or Evernote are more reliable than anything I could stand up on my own crummy VPS. - Anything I could build probably doesn't have its own syncing app that works properly offline. - Whatever I need to jot down probably doesn't even need half the security that the services out there provide. Do I really care if the list of movies that I want to watch on Netflix gets leaked to the public? Meh. - It's unlikely that any home-grown or OSS solution would have the rigorous polish of Keep or Evernote.