Tech Tonic | Our digital lives are fragile, as Evernote & Google remind us again

You’d have, when you signed up for Evernote many years ago, expected this note-taking platform to be a consistent and trouble-free fixture in your life.

Ten years ago, Evernote was on a roll. Before slick apps became cool, this was a slick app to use. Cross-platform too, before cross-platform became inevitably cool. Their journey started as far back as 2008, and by the summer of 2011, they’d already reached 11 million users. That growth, at a time, when apps weren’t exactly as cool as they are now. And if I were to classify this, I’d classify Evernote as one of the early pivots that gave smartphones (and eventually tablets; the iPad at first and Android tabs when they decided to be actually useful) a whiff of playing a part that potential multi-screen computing ecosystem. This was destined to be one of those simple things in life, you’d have expected to rely on. It didn’t go that way.

(FILES) Google Cloud's logo is pictured at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 27, 2024. Google announced on September 25, 2024 it had filed a complaint at the European Commission against Microsoft, accusing its rival of "anticompetitive" licensing practices to force customers to use its cloud service. (Photo by PAU BARRENA / AFP)(AFP)

In 2013, the app wanted to be your go-to, something that’d remember every moment in life you wished to pen down. To clip. To note. To jot. Handwritten too, before the stylus’ became a statement accessory with phones and tablets. A year later, at their annual developer conference, the then-owners made clear intentions for Evernote to take on Microsoft Office. Alas, times changed. Yet, it’s been quite messy since. Imagine switching something as simple yet enormous in volume, as a pile of digital notes.

The reason I mention Evernote is while the app’s now owners, Bending Spoons, are trying to find the mojo of the past, irreparable damage may have been done. More than 10 features, which were restricted to premium users (Evernote spent years limiting the free plan and pushing everyone to pay) are being unlocked for free tier too—that includes note history with restore, email notes, pdf annotation and offline notebooks. Too little, too late? There are now many an option for users. Better ones too (with wholesome promises of artificial intelligence as well, to go with that). Bear, Notion, Obsidian as well as the incumbents Google Keep and Microsoft OneNote.

This isn’t the only example of why our digital lives are so fragile. Killed by Google, a website run by tech enthusiasts struggling to come to terms with Google’s habit of purging projects, is an idea that itself has wheels enough to be an online product. Want to bet on what Google will cull next? We’d barely exited the summer of 2024 when Google announced (and this was a total surprise) that Chromecast had run its course. After 11 years of a largely seamless existence, that allowed many among us to simply transition the viewing experience from a phone to a larger screen such as a TV or a projector. Just before that, Google One’s VPN product was shuttered—equally surprising since Google’s been pushing the One subscriptions, and VPN or virtual private networks, are increasingly finding traction among users who’d like to keep their web browsing sessions comparatively safer (and they’d be otherwise).

I had earlier written about (you can read that here) the smoke and mirrors that define digital ownership too. The way content delivery and consumption are shaping up to be (or have already, depending on your optimism), we’ve come to terms with temporarily licensing content we see and hear, rather than outright ownership. The details often reside in that pesky EULA or end user license agreement, which we mostly dismiss with disdain (that instant click on “next” or “accept” is our digital signature for acceptance). Who is going to bother to read realms of fine print?

There is the cost proposition too, and it’s largely worked out the way of the former (a PS5 game each will be in the range of ₹3,000 to ₹4,000; a PlayStation Plus subscription with a larger gaming buffet costs ₹499 onwards a month; your choice is made for you, with the perception of value). Netflix, Spotify, cloud storage platforms such as Dropbox, the ebooks Amazon sells, and your data on social media. You have one key to that locker. The platform has the other key. Stop paying the subscription, and you’re kept out of the walled garden, looking in, with envy. You cannot unlock anything with just your key. Much like a bank locker system.

It isn’t impossible to shift your notes from Evernote to one of the newer, artificially intelligent platforms. Neither is it too difficult to find an alternative to Chromecast to wirelessly stream content from your phone to your TV. It is certainly painful though. An annoyance. I made the switch from Evernote to a stage of experimentation and finally settled on Apple Notes (till then, that’s a question that often keeps me up at night). I also switched from Microsoft Word to Bear 2. As was a transition from Dropbox to OneDrive. There are many such examples.

What you need to remember is that you may find yourself so invested in certain platforms such as Apple iCloud, Google Photos, Spotify, OneDrive cloud storage, and your social media existence on Instagram, that it may be almost (that’s the keyword; nothing is as bad as it seems at first) impossible to shift if that moment ever beckons. That’s the effect tech companies tend to go for. It becomes easier to convince you to pay, with your money, your data, or both.

Vishal Mathur is the technology editor for Hindustan Times. Tech Tonic is a weekly column that looks at the impact of personal technology on the way we live, and vice-versa. The views expressed are personal.