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Comment by polote | Hacker News Reader

> Is that really such a breakthrough? Don't evernote etc. do the same?

Yeah it's the hype, today Notion is the go to tool for PKM, the same Evernote used to be a few years ago and the same others used to be before Evernote. For some weird reason people prefer to all use the same product, and instead of having a bunch of users on Evernote, a bunch on Notion, a bunch on Roam, a bunch on others. They all migrate to the current hot tool

Whether it's Evernote or Notion, they are great products, but nothing revolutionary. The major difference between Evernote and Notion is that Notion has managed to get a good chunk of their revenue from companies. This should make them more durable.

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> For some weird reason people prefer to all use the same product, and instead of having a bunch of users on Evernote, a bunch on Notion, a bunch on Roam, a bunch on others. They all migrate to the current hot tool

I don't think this is so very weird. For most users, popular products are likely to be more future proof, so choosing them can grant a sense of security.

> For most users, popular products are likely to be more future proof

Psh, the average user clearly hasn't heard of the Lindy effect[1]! /s

Sarcastic condescension aside, I was really taken aback by the sheer fanfare Notion had when it released. In my circles, adoption was driven largely by one designer; in fairness he's always excited about new technology but when everything is the best thing since the iPad, a few eyebrows get raised. I'll bet lunch money they would be first to migrate to the next-hot PKM tool for the slightest feature offering.

As for me, I want to spend the least amount of time adapting my workflow. My workflow must help me work, not be something I am constantly working on. So it's all about inertia for me; Evernote needs to fuck up big before I leave.

In fairness, there was a time (around 2015s) when Evernote had frustrating bugs. Even beyond that, their editor was also subpar for such a long time. But I'm really satisfied with the current version which, I suspect, came about due to the threat Notion posed to their user numbers. Yay for market competition, I guess somehow I still benefited off Notion. :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Didn't Evernote experienced a similar hype cycle? I still vaguely remember when it was Evernote that was the new kid in the block back in the day, streamlining the organisation of personal knowledge/information with rich text editor, tags, and syncing.

It's probably better being hyped before waning than just waning, I guess.

That is my bet. Lindy will save Evernote, which little by little will improve, become faster and include new and useful features (I hope not too many). I really like it now, except the performance, but performance will improve little by little as they optimize the new code.

Or it's due to the fact that people are like me. I never liked Evernote nor Onenote because they always felt clunky and got in my way.

When I found an alternative that I liked (Notion) I switched to it. Simple as that really.

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