This is something we think about a lot for my note-taking app[1]. We usually call this the "super-optimizer trap" internally, where we notice that a lot of users come to our app after filling up a series of other note-taking apps with data. For some people, this is just because their organization system isn't very well thought out and therefore doesn't scale well. However, a lot of people do use a well-thought out system. Getting Things Done (GTD) is mentioned in the article, but we find a lot of users that come to our app are trying Zettelkasten[2] or some variation thereof.

And yet... many of those people also have an urge to switch once they've used an app for a certain period of time. I think the issue is a note-taking variation of the "Hedonic Treadmill". Some people are just mentally the type of person that gets a kick out of organizing their notes and thoughts. Eventually those people return to their baseline and need to switch to a new system in order to get that adrenaline fix. More concretely, we have seen that users who say they have come to Supernotes after trying many other note-taking apps are much more likely to churn, regardless of if we have the features they say they are looking for at the beginning.

As far as solutions go, I think one common pattern is spaced repetition (Anki being one of the best known apps for this), where the system will automatically re-surface things it wants you to remember (and not just forget). Many in the space are now trying to utilize AI (i.e. LLMs) to give even better contextual info and resurfacing, which is a promising approach. Regardless I think features like this can definitely help make an app continue to feel fresh long after the honeymoon period. We try to solve this by just having your notes be a feed (rather than just a list of documents), which allows you to occasionally find things you forgot about. Definitely a tough challenge with lots of potential solutions!

[1] https://supernotes.app/

[2] https://community.supernotes.app/t/trying-to-decide/1644