[rcarmo]

It failed because it turned the app into bloat and killed multi-device syncing.

Most of the decisions made regarding product features were user-hostile not just to the free tier, but also to paying users who did not want the "features" they kept pushing out.

[jwr]

This is a very similar path to the one that Skitch and Dropbox took. In each case, instead of perfecting and maintaining a really good app, business pressures caused them to pursue growth at all costs. This is a common problem these days.

[throwaway23597]

I think more tech companies need to give up on growth mode and be OK with just being a regular old dividend paying company. I mean honestly, how big can some note-taking app possibly get? Or Snap for instance, which is getting into hardware, into content creation, etc. Who asked for this? I think the business and the users would be better served with being realistic about what an app is for and doubling down on a good user experience, rather than piling on layer after layer of bloat in the hope that some of it sticks.

[TylerE]

More companies should just stay private and grow organically.

[productman1]

Once companies hire Product Managers, it is usually downhill from there in 80% of cases.

The problem is that the PMs are incentivized to deliver features, even if that is not the right thing to do.

See: Postman.

[FabioFleitas]

This is not necessarily true. PMs are incentivized to use product as a means to grow the business. This usually does manifest itself as delivering product features - but it can manifest itself in other ways. Ultimately product managers are tasked with discovering how to grow the product areas they are owning. Great product managers will work closely with users to understand their needs to refine & grow the product. Examples of ways PMs can accomplish things like this without necessarily delivering new product features: better user onboarding, in-app product tours & engagement, etc.

If a PM is just delivering features without tying it back to user needs, business growth & product strategy then they are just a "feature factory" which is bad product management.

[viig99]

You are defining an exceptional Product Manager not the norm.

[Joeri]

Yeah I switched from postman to VS code’s REST client addon because it does less but it does enough. Postman is this really complicated and cumbersome thing now, just deeply unpleasant to use.

[alex_chang]

As a senior PM and multiple time founder, I don't think this is the right way to look at the situation. PMs should be incentivized towards driving user value not features. It's tough once an organization gets large enough for everyone on the team to be aligned to the same vision and what user value means; this is where a PM can be a positive multiplier effect. The situation you are describing seems to me more like a junior PM issue or a broader misunderstanding by that organization of how to use and incentivize PMs effectively.

[nathanaldensr]

> business pressures

You mean greed.

[AlexandrB]

We've codified greed in how tech businesses commonly operate. Once they take VC money, the expectation is constant growth. If you have a product with a limited market/audience there are only a few ways to achieve that:

- Increase prices - which will drive some of your customers away.

- Revenue through ads - which will drive some of your customers away.

- New products - risky, and if successful it sometimes means the original product becomes abandonware.

- New features to try to increase the audience for your product or monetize directly - what it seems like Evernote did.

But not every product can have billions or even millions of users. So sometimes these all fail anyway. Basically investment, whether from VCs or an IPO, is often death for a small business serving a niche market.

[olivermarks]

also survival, but in the case of Evernote (which I still use)incompetence

[TillE]

> but also to paying users

I was a paid user of the lower tier, and I decided to leave when they kept showing me nag screens to push me to buy the higher tiers. Totally unacceptable in a product I was paying for.

[joelfried]

I left chess.com for the same reason. You'd think it would be considered a best practice to not antagonize your paying customers . . . .

[RockRobotRock]

Dropbox does the same shit. they are totally shameless.

[ggregoire]

Apparently even Wikipedia does this. A HN user was saying the other day that he donates $50 every year and this year they emailed him to ask $250.

[chewz]

> It failed because it turned the app into bloat and killed multi-device syncing.

I disagree.

I have came back to paid plan last year and Evernote works really well on Mac (except slow startup, but that has also improved over last year), quite well on ChromeOS (in browser)... Evernote web capture extension is superior to everything else I have tried especially behind paywalls.

Evernote works so well, and it is quite polished and stable. So much that it had became base for my daily workflow which is mostly journaling with lots of attachments..