Rant: Google, Stop Killing Things - Part 4: I Will Not Use Keep
As you may have heard, Google Keep is live (for real this time). I, for one, will not be switching to it. The reason is simple. As Google has shown us with its “spring cleaning” events (and most notably, for me, with the death of Google Reader), it is a big company that does a lot of things, and it does not always want to keep doing all those things. I do not see Keep as being hugely beneficial to Google as a business, so I could easily see it getting killed in a year or two. On top of that, Google Killed its last note-taking product, Google Notebook, in a previous “spring cleaning”
My preferred notes app right now is AK Notepad, a lightweight version of Catch Notes (both are made by the same company). The reason I intend to stay with AK/Catch is the same reason Evernote users should stick with Evernote: note taking apps are what these companies do. A company like Catch or Evernote is not going to kill its note taking app during “spring cleaning” because then the company would not exist.
On a side note (no pun intended), this could, arguably, be used as a reason to pick Facebook over Google+: Google+ is part of a social strategy for Google, but social is Facebook. Without a social network, Google would control a bit less of the Internet than it does. Without a social network, Facebook would not exist.
Edit (2013-07-30): Apparently I underestimated Catch's desire to exist. Catch has announced it will soon be killing Catch Notes “to take the company in a different direction.” Evernote's UX is bad enough that I am willing to give Google Keep a shot (at least until a decent competitor comes along).
Edit 2 (2013-10-18): Simplenote seems like what I want in a notes app.
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