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This! i prefer tags over folders for this reason. All notes go into single folder , no sub directories . Because a note can have multiple classifications a tree structure is not natural way to organize them. Add tags , if you have note taking program will show you all possible existing tags you it makes this easier.

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I love tags until I actually use them, I always wind up using them inconsistently, or not at all for a specific file, and them bam, I can't find anything at all.

The benefit of file structures is that things have to have a place, you can't not put something in a folder, so for car insurance, it might be in "insurance" or "cars" but it's definitely one or the other. With tags, it could be "insurance", "finance", "cars", "automobiles", "vehicles", "veihcles", etc.

Any tips of how to funnel some strictness into tags so that they're actually usable?

Sometimes autocomplete works for me, so I avoid the "auto" vs "automobile" but it falls apart as soon as I realize I have "autombile" suggested and now I wonder what to do to re-tag files.

Additionally, tags naturally form hierarchies in the form of trees (or ADGs), so any possible taxonomy should support that.

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