Since Evernote changed their pricing and usage terms two weeks ago it seems people are desperately exporting all their notes and looking for alternatives. Reading tweets and articles on the topic it seems like Microsoft OneNote is the beacon of hope for many. It provides roughly the same feature set, it’s available on many devices and it is free to use. So far so good.
What makes me worried about OneNote though is that there is no way of exporting all of your notes, like you can with Evernote. It’s a one way data transfer. When the day comes and Microsoft decides to change their terms of service, jumping ship and moving on to a new service might be impossible. At least if you want to take your data with you.
From my perspective I think Evernote’s decision to change their pricing and usage terms is a great opportunity to re-evaluate your choice if you are a user of their service. There are hundreds of solutions available for note taking and there is no rush to jump ship as Evernote are not closing down. Take your time and think about what you need in a new solution, and when evaluating new services — make sure to check if you can easily move on later and take your data with you. This should be one of the most important decision points in my humble opinion.