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As far as I'm concerned, Pinboard is the most reasonably managed digital product I pay for. No feature creep, no bloat, no overthinking it. While Maciej notes

As far as I'm concerned, Pinboard is the most reasonably managed digital product I pay for. No feature creep, no bloat, no overthinking it. While Maciej notes accurately that death comes for us all, he's already outlasted the theoretically more powerful competitor that was Delicious. I would say "I'm excited to see what's next for Pinboard," but I suspect the future is all it needs to be: The service will continue to function as designed, and that's all I really need.

garysahota93 7y ago
Agreed!! It's a no-nonsense service that just works. I use it everyday but don't have to think about it or relearn it as the years go by. I love it for what it is and am excited for the next 10 years.
azinman2 7y ago
I thought this is saying it won’t continue.. the whole death + backup part?
- binarymax 7y ago
  He’s speaking more of the human condition aspect of things. On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Be prepared.
sprafa 7y ago
I love Pinboard the way I love no other digital product I’ve ever owned or interacted with. If anyone wants to take lessons for the future of what digital products could and should be, they should learn their lessons from Pinboard. It’s a delightful and wonderful service.
- idlewords 7y ago
  This is extremely nice to read; thank you!
  - x0x0 7y ago
    I love that you don't randomly fuck with the UI I've already learned for shits & giggles. I'm not saying it's perfect; just I've already learned to do my work and now I want to pay attention to other things. I despise how the idiots at google and apple can't live without randomly permuting the android, gsuite, ios, and macos UIs all the time. There is a pending android 9 update on my phone, and ios 12 on my ipad. Not today, Satan, not today!
    - liendolucas 7y ago
      I haven't used Pinboard but you're damn right about this. Is like the supermarket, one day you find chocolates in one isle next week chocolates are in a completely different isle only that messing around with the UI infuriates users.
      - kraigie 7y ago
        >Is like the supermarket, one day you find chocolates in one isle next week chocolates are in a completely different isle only The supermarkets do that because it increases sales. While your hunting around you will see other products and between old chocolate location and new choclate location will be some products that people often purchase with choclate. You might be annoyed but you will more likely give them more revenue. I wonder if the same is true 2ith ux design?
    - ahartmetz 7y ago
      This has been discussed around here - if you have permanent UX staff, what are they going to do to justify their existence and how do they get promotions? They have to change things.
      - valiant55 7y ago
        This is an interesting observation. I worked for Google for a number of years, and while the UX staff was light, our (relatively) small product did have dedicated staff. That being said, Google's org is pretty fluid, there should be plenty of new projects in need of UX that you don't have to mess with old projects.
- thecrumb 7y ago
  Yes. No UI overhaul. No "improvements". It. Just. Works.
e40 7y ago
If I use Chrome and the sync of bookmarks for that, across devices, why would I use Pinboard? All these comments have me wanting to try it, but I'm not sure what I get over what I have. Thanks.
- alexpotato 7y ago
  What about the day when you decide that Chrome is not the browser for you anymore?
  - e40 7y ago
    I export my bookmarks and import them to Firefox, and possibly use Pinboard then?
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  https://pinboard.in/tour/ https://pinboard.in/tour/ A highlight for me was the ability to tag bookmarks, search through them, and manage them with bulk editing abilities.
  - e40 7y ago
    Can you search through them only with the $25/year sub?
    - docbrown 7y ago
      I think, and someone correct me if i’m wrong, that the $25/yr sub is mostly to enable archiving, which gives you full-text search through all of your bookmarks. You can search by tag or URL on a standard account.
      - idlewords 7y ago
        That is correct.
- docbrown 7y ago
tedmiston 7y ago
I do love Pinboard as well, but I would really like to see it continue iterating. There are some very useful features that would be great additions to the product though. Things like better Firefox integration, more powerful querying (e.g., it's not possible to search "unread starred bookmarks tagged with hn" today), and the open API being feature equivalent to the website to name a few.

garysahota93 7y ago

Agreed!! It's a no-nonsense service that just works. I use it everyday but don't have to think about it or relearn it as the years go by. I love it for what it is and am excited for the next 10 years.

azinman2 7y ago

I thought this is saying it won’t continue.. the whole death + backup part?

binarymax 7y ago
He’s speaking more of the human condition aspect of things. On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Be prepared.

sprafa 7y ago

I love Pinboard the way I love no other digital product I’ve ever owned or interacted with. If anyone wants to take lessons for the future of what digital products could and should be, they should learn their lessons from Pinboard. It’s a delightful and wonderful service.

idlewords 7y ago
This is extremely nice to read; thank you!
- x0x0 7y ago
  I love that you don't randomly fuck with the UI I've already learned for shits & giggles. I'm not saying it's perfect; just I've already learned to do my work and now I want to pay attention to other things. I despise how the idiots at google and apple can't live without randomly permuting the android, gsuite, ios, and macos UIs all the time. There is a pending android 9 update on my phone, and ios 12 on my ipad. Not today, Satan, not today!
  - liendolucas 7y ago
    I haven't used Pinboard but you're damn right about this. Is like the supermarket, one day you find chocolates in one isle next week chocolates are in a completely different isle only that messing around with the UI infuriates users.
    - kraigie 7y ago
      >Is like the supermarket, one day you find chocolates in one isle next week chocolates are in a completely different isle only The supermarkets do that because it increases sales. While your hunting around you will see other products and between old chocolate location and new choclate location will be some products that people often purchase with choclate. You might be annoyed but you will more likely give them more revenue. I wonder if the same is true 2ith ux design?
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    This has been discussed around here - if you have permanent UX staff, what are they going to do to justify their existence and how do they get promotions? They have to change things.
    - valiant55 7y ago
      This is an interesting observation. I worked for Google for a number of years, and while the UX staff was light, our (relatively) small product did have dedicated staff. That being said, Google's org is pretty fluid, there should be plenty of new projects in need of UX that you don't have to mess with old projects.
thecrumb 7y ago
Yes. No UI overhaul. No "improvements". It. Just. Works.

e40 7y ago

If I use Chrome and the sync of bookmarks for that, across devices, why would I use Pinboard? All these comments have me wanting to try it, but I'm not sure what I get over what I have. Thanks.

alexpotato 7y ago
What about the day when you decide that Chrome is not the browser for you anymore?
- e40 7y ago
  I export my bookmarks and import them to Firefox, and possibly use Pinboard then?
Consultant32452 7y ago
https://pinboard.in/tour/ https://pinboard.in/tour/ A highlight for me was the ability to tag bookmarks, search through them, and manage them with bulk editing abilities.
- e40 7y ago
  Can you search through them only with the $25/year sub?
  - docbrown 7y ago
    I think, and someone correct me if i’m wrong, that the $25/yr sub is mostly to enable archiving, which gives you full-text search through all of your bookmarks. You can search by tag or URL on a standard account.
    - idlewords 7y ago
      That is correct.
docbrown 7y ago

tedmiston 7y ago

I do love Pinboard as well, but I would really like to see it continue iterating. There are some very useful features that would be great additions to the product though. Things like better Firefox integration, more powerful querying (e.g., it's not possible to search "unread starred bookmarks tagged with hn" today), and the open API being feature equivalent to the website to name a few.