@liaizon Another way to look at Evernote's problems is that what is core to Evernote is a feature to others such as Dropbox and Box. They also were up against Office suites (Office, Workspace, Zoho Office) that gave that same type app as part of more important stuff you were already paying for. Why pay extra for Evernote when OneNote comes with your Office subscription?
So, they were forced to try and monetize something everyone else gave away with stuff you needed.
Ultimately, note taking doesn't lack value (since everyone does it, there must be some value to consumers) its just easy to build and hence lacks unique value.