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Comment by jef_leppard | Hacker News Reader

If you don’t want collaborative editing, don’t use it. I’m saying most users wanted it and started looking elsewhere when EN couldn’t deliver. It’s easier to add a lock on collaboration than to backfill later.

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The problem is that the effort to do collaborative editing creates a lot of other problems.

I want to be able to just start typing, on my phone. Instead, I have to wait for it to sync. If I am in a place with bad reception, that will take a while. It lags and freezes, all in order to support collaboration that I do not want.

I want to add pictures. I want to add links to other notes. I pay for a subscription to get bullet proof cloud backup. Sometimes I want to share notes. I don’t want to collaboratively edit my personal notes with my private thoughts and journal entries.

Evernote stopped focusing on that.

I might switch over to Muse. It was designed to be local first and uses cdrt for sync.

Most EVERNOTE users wanted it? I sincerely doubt that even 20% of Evernote users want that.

People that want a collaborative Docs app already have Google Docs. Evernote is mostly a "digital cabinet". It's where notes and documents go to die (in a good way).

I've used the collaborative feature in google docs only a few times even tho i write google docs like daily. most docs are authored by 1 person. the side comments, however, are invaluable

I think collaborative editing was a mistake. According to Libin circa 2010, Evernote was supposed to be your second brain. Letting other people edit my notes doesn't fit the second brain model (IMHO). I wish Evernote had stayed small and tightly focused on a personal product.

Unfortunately, it's hard to sell to individuals compared to businesses, and so that's where their focus went once they had VC money driving the ship.

In addition to what other posters said, there are opportunity and maintenance costs. Building features for use-cases other than mine puts me in the position of wondering whether my use-case is part of the long term vision for the product. I want a note taking app that strives to improve at capturing quick notes. A document collaboration tool that happens to work pretty well for capturing quick notes is less likely to satisfy me long term.

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