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I didn't get the email, but I did sign up in 2014, and /convert confirms that. I love the service, and I was particularly taken by the old style business model

I didn't get the email, but I did sign up in 2014, and /convert confirms that. I love the service, and I was particularly taken by the old style business model which increased sign-up cost over time - if this means that model didn't pay off, it's sad news. I would be more than willing to pay a subscription were I able to. I'm not currently earning enough money to pay my outgoings, unfortunately, so I'm currently looking to cut subscriptions rather than go in the other direction. However, I'm close to breaking even, and if I find myself in a position where I have a surplus, pinboard will be one of the first things I support. Given the circumstances, I'd be totally understanding if you decided, one day, to retire such accounts as mine. I've previously contacted you on two issues relating to the API and sadly never heard back. One was a simple question, one was to report a bug. I understand you're busy, though, and you took some time to investigate problems with my delicious account resurrection the other day, which I do appreciate.

idlewords 6y ago
Thanks for those kind words! One of the many reasons I'm making this voluntary is that there's a variety of people who are not in a financial position to switch over now, and I don't want to yank the rug out from under them. You can't really look at the old-style business model in isolation—the world of 2009 was one where there was a really popular free bookmarking service, and it was easy to piggyback off of them by offering better privacy and higher information density to a frustrated segment of their users. In 2021, most link sharing has moved into siloed apps like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, so there's not that big population of average Joe and Jane bookmarkers to draw from, and people have much higher expectations as far as their ability to manage large collections goes. There are also very deep-pocketed competitors (one baked into a major browser) that charge steep annual fees. The business has changed.

idlewords 6y ago

Thanks for those kind words! One of the many reasons I'm making this voluntary is that there's a variety of people who are not in a financial position to switch over now, and I don't want to yank the rug out from under them. You can't really look at the old-style business model in isolation—the world of 2009 was one where there was a really popular free bookmarking service, and it was easy to piggyback off of them by offering better privacy and higher information density to a frustrated segment of their users. In 2021, most link sharing has moved into siloed apps like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, so there's not that big population of average Joe and Jane bookmarkers to draw from, and people have much higher expectations as far as their ability to manage large collections goes. There are also very deep-pocketed competitors (one baked into a major browser) that charge steep annual fees. The business has changed.