You remember the early 2010s, right? Back then, Evernote was the promised land for the digitally disorganized. It was supposed to be our “second brain.” We dumped everything into it: receipts, college notes, random web clippings, and half-finished novels. We were loyal because it worked.
Fast forward to today. Evernote has been gutted by Bending Spoons, and the exodus is in full swing. But this isn’t just a story about a bad acquisition. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when a great product gets addicted to its own growth.
Feature bloat in mature software isn’t a sign of product evolution; it’s a desperate attempt to justify premium subscription pricing.
Think about it. For years, Evernote kept adding stuff. Tasks, calendars, widgets, AI integrations. The app became clunky, the UX restrictive, and the spontaneous joy of taking a quick note was completely suppressed by a bloated interface. They weren’t building a better mousetrap; they were building a cage to keep you locked in.
The paradox of product lock-in is that the very features designed to trap you eventually become the catalyst for your escape. When Bending Spoons took over, they didn’t reward that loyalty. They tightened the screws. They hiked prices, degraded the free tier, and sacrificed core utility to extract short-term revenue. They weaponized the bloat against the user.
When a product sacrifices core utility to extract short-term revenue, it isn’t optimizing—it is cannibalizing itself.
You see it in the comments of anyone who lived through this transition. People aren’t migrating to complex enterprise wikis. They are fleeing to SimpleNote. They are moving to Telegram. They are choosing tools that do 1/20th of what Evernote does, but do it flawlessly, for free.
This is the liberating relief of abandoning bloatware for radical simplicity. You realize you never needed the 50 extra features. You just needed to write things down and sync them across your devices.
Premium pricing doesn’t guarantee a premium experience; it just guarantees you’ll pay more to be frustrated.
If you are a software builder, look closely at the ashes of Evernote. Building a moat on feature bloat rather than core utility creates a fragile foundation. When the enshittification lifecycle kicks in—and it always does—your users will jump ship the second the friction of leaving becomes less painful than the friction of staying.
If you are a user, take the hint. Stop paying for software that treats you as an extraction target. The best tool isn’t the one with the most buttons; it’s the one that gets out of your way.
FAQ
Q: Isn't Evernote just adapting to a competitive market by adding features and changing pricing?
A: No, they are suffocating their core user base. Adding clunky features and hiking prices on a degraded product isn't adaptation; it's extracting whatever value is left before the ship sinks completely.
Q: What should I use instead of Evernote?
A: Whatever does the bare minimum flawlessly. SimpleNote, Apple Notes, or even a free Telegram channel. If a tool does 1/20th of what Evernote does but actually syncs fast and stays out of your way, you've won.
Q: So all software eventually goes to shit?
A: Only the software that confuses growth with evolution. Tools that stick to their core utility and monetize sustainably avoid the enshittification death spiral. Bloat is a choice, not an inevitability.