9 ms·

Leaving Instapaper for Readability

59 points by agperson 15y ago

rmm 15y ago
I left because I felt readability has a lot more features I like. The ability to hit ` on any webpage is awesome. I am also a click away from saving the article. The latest iteration of Instapaper looks nicer in some ways, (looks like Reeder was an inspiration), but is painfully annoying in others. i.e I now have to touch twice to delete an article. Instapaper needs a stripped down Lite version that all it does is show articles and then let you delete them. My 2c.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > The ability to hit ` on any webpage is awesome. What does that do? > I am also a click away from saving the article. So're you in Instapaper? Depending on the browser you're using anyway, I guess. There's an official bookmarklet (1-click in browsers which still have bookmarks bars) and there is probably a chrome/button extension for your browser (I see a dozen or two on the Chrome extensions site)
_frog 15y ago
Regarding the thought that Instapaper is somehow robbing writers of ad revenue, I think it needs to be noted that you actually have to visit an article to add it to your Instapaper queue. On top of that, Readability's model of paying authors isn't all that effective, a recent article on The Brooks Review[1] showed that even a moderately popular site such as his generates nearly no income from Readability's service, especially now that the service has gone free with optional payments. Also, what happens to all those authors that don't opt in to receive payments from Readability? Does readability just take money on their behalf and not actually pay it out to them? It seems like that would be a legal grey area. [1]: http://brooksreview.net/2012/03/readability-ios/ http://brooksreview.net/2012/03/readability-ios/
- duck 15y ago
  it needs to be noted that you actually have to visit an article to add it to your Instapaper queue That isn't true. Lots of sites/aggregators add "Read it later" buttons to articles so it will go right into your queue and then there is the "Browse" page on Instapaper itself where you can add articles as well.
  - _frog 15y ago
    Fair point, some Twitter clients let you send a tweeted link straight to Instapaper too, but in my experience the overwhelming majority of links I add come from me using the bookmarklet when I visit a web page.
- dmazin 15y ago
  I know that lots of services let you add to Instapaper, but with Instapaper itself it's impossible to add articles without visiting them. I think I recall Marco talking about the fact that this is on purpose for the previously stated concerns. Also, Instapaper doesn't let you stitch articles broken up into multiple pages.
  - _frog 15y ago
    Actually multi-page stitching just got added to the browser bookmarklet, relevant blog post: http://blog.instapaper.com/post/18556429689 http://blog.instapaper.com/post/18556429689
    - iamclovin 15y ago
      Marco previously felt uncomfortable implementing this feature (http://www.marco.org/2011/07/19/siracusa-multipage http://www.marco.org/2011/07/19/siracusa-multipage), so I wonder what prompted the change in policy.
  - mmahemoff 15y ago
    "I know that lots of services let you add to Instapaper, but with Instapaper itself it's impossible to add articles without visiting them." I can understand his dilemma, but this policy unfortunately makes the social feature of Instapaper almost unusable. You want to Read Later a bunch of articles your friends have liked? You have to load each one of them up just so you can add it later.
motoford 15y ago
Do you feel guilty when you skip commercials on your TiVo? I don't, sorry. An ad on a page is no different than a billboard or some other passive advertising. I am not required to notice it.
- sthatipamala 15y ago
  There's a slight difference. Billboards don't help support anything of value to you (namely the road you are driving on). They are advertising for the sake of advertising. Commercials on radio/TV/web fund the content you are enjoying. Of course you can flip the channel or have AdBlock or whatever, but you're actively taking revenue away from the creator. You may not have a problem with that (I certainly don't).
- bigiain 15y ago
  http://blakemccreary.com/2012/03/banksy-on-advertising-quote/ http://blakemccreary.com/2012/03/banksy-on-advertising-quote... * "You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs." -- Banksy * Just one of _many_ hits on google reproducing it, I'm not endorsing that blog in particular…
duck 15y ago
I left Instapaper for Readability as well, but my reason was entirely different and a first for me (at least on the web): Marco. I'm not even sure what it is about him exactly, but after listening to some of his Build and Analyze podcasts and reading his slanted blog posts I just found myself not wanting to use or support Instapaper anymore.
- reidmain 15y ago
  I'm still listening to Build & Analyze but I'm one or two more nonsensical episodes away from removing it from iTunes. The earlier episodes were a lot better in my opinion. Conversation was focused much more on actual development and the way they talked about it was interesting to me. Now they talk about topics that they think are interesting to developers but I guess I'm no longer their target demographic. Like you I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something about Marco that just rubs me the wrong way. I think as Instapaper has gotten more popular it has gone to Marco's head and he has become a bit arrogant. His motto seems to be "this is how I do it and if you don't agree I don't care because it works for me and I'm making a lot of money". But it really doesn't matter in the end. Competition is always a good thing. Some people will stay with Instapaper, some people will be converted to Readability but Readability's free price tag should make a lot more people aware of this type of service. If Marco has the ability to keep up then both products should get better.
  - Protonk 15y ago
    I was also frustrated by the sort of arrogant response to all the complaints about non-development topics. It's not like we can't have interesting shows about technical topics! Hypercritical and The Critical Path are proof enough with the same host. And I wouldn't even mind technical topics about coffee or thermostats (ok maybe I would mind about that). What kills me is the half-baked life coach bullshit that 1/3rd of Build and Analyze is turning in to. I don't need another person telling me how I should value my time. I read those posts from Joel on Software in 2004 just like Marco did.
    - reidmain 15y ago
Steveism 15y ago
As far as aesthetics go I actually prefer the approach Marco takes with Instapaper. I think Readability does have more of a polished feel but in no way does this polish make the service any more usable. The Instapaper apps are top notch in my book. The moral angle of feeling guilty and thus using Readabilty to compensate authors is total garbage. I disagree with this guilt trip blog post on so many levels. The 30% cut that Readability takes is the whole reason Readability exists. Essentially the writers are providing free content to Readability that they get to make a nice profit on. This is exploiting the writers to a far greater degree than Instapaper. Also, not every article I save I deem worthy of a contribution to the author. I may utterly hate an author's guts and am simply reading their article to better understand their insane philosophies before I decide I despise them. I'll fall back on an old Techdirt term: CwF+RtB. If I like a writer and want to support them I'll visit their site enough to earn them ad impressions, or I'll buy their book, or I purchase something using their affiliate link. I certainly don't need Readability paying people for me while pocketing a handsome chunk of change in the process.
athst 15y ago
I think Readability's model is a little presumptuous. Why do they get to decide unilaterally that they deserve 30% of the revenue? It's not like the App Store where you agreed to it. Given all the work that goes into creating an article, is extracting the text worth 30%? If I was a publisher, I wouldn't think so. To me, Instapaper's approach is much more straightforward. You have to have gone to the publisher's site in the first place and seen all of the ads. You pay a flat fee for the Instapaper app, and can subscribe if you like the service. Why make it more complicated than it has to be?
- ryanwatkins 15y ago
  Yes, Instapapers model is more straight forward, but you do not have to go to the publishers site and seen the ads, to add the article. Instapaper provides and API to add links without visiting the site that is used by a number of other applications. And I've written an app (http://www.ryanwatkins.net/software/papermache http://www.ryanwatkins.net/software/papermache - webOS and Android Instapaper app) that allows you to browser a feed of articles and add them to Instapaper directly.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > You have to have gone to the publisher's site in the first place and seen all of the ads Not entirely correct, there's an integrated API which lets third-party applications add articles to Instapaper. Many applications (Reeder for instance, or quite a few Twitter clients) have this feature.
ruswick 15y ago
As we all already know, Readability has been running what could be considered a scam by pocketing some of that money simply because the authors don't know about it. And, I really don't see why I would have a moral obligation to pay for every single article I read. Not every article is worth paying for. 90% of the stuff I read is trash. Plus, a lot of blogs offer their own ways to donate. If a writer is good, they'll get my money anyway. I'm not handing out cash to everyone, and I'm definitely not giving it to Readability.
ntoshev 15y ago
Like Instapaper, Readability doesn't have an android app, so any other advantage it may have is meaningless for me.
- CarlHoerberg 15y ago
  Instapaper has several (not offical, but good non the less) android clients: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.codecarpet.readingo.dev&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5jb2RlY2FycGV0LnJlYWRpbmdvLmRldiJd https://market.android.com/details?id=com.codecarpet.reading... https://market.android.com/details?id=com.homelinux.hilo.everpaper&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5ob21lbGludXguaGlsby5ldmVycGFwZXIiXQ. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.homelinux.hilo.eve.... there's only one readability client, which is not that good.... https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fahimk.readabilityclient&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5mYWhpbWsucmVhZGFiaWxpdHljbGllbnQiXQ. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fahimk.readability....
  - badboy 15y ago
    I use InstaFetch on my Android phone: https://market.android.com/details?id=pl.immortal.instafetch https://market.android.com/details?id=pl.immortal.instafetch Even the Lite Version has everything I need: Saving links and from time to time even read them on my phone (now that I've got a Kindle that's not so often anymore)
- Picknroll 15y ago
  Readibility is working on an Android app (1). Marco, on the other hand, has repeatedly said he isn't interested in any other platforms besides iOS. (1) Readability app for iOS and Android 'coming soon' | The Verge http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/14/2797042/readability-app-ios-android-coming-soon http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/14/2797042/readability-app-io...
quinndupont 15y ago
Ever wonder if any publishers have actually collected any of your contribution? There's NO accountability about how much money actually makes it to publishers; since Readability does not seek the publishers, each publisher must be aware of their money, and go collect it from Readability, and if they do not, eventually it becomes Readability's. It's a great model, and the ethics are wonderful, but it suffers from this fatal flaw.
hasantayyar 15y ago
Instapaper has a great api and yes it is not usable as readability. But I can still use instapaper on any platform.
nuttendorfer 15y ago
I've left Instapaper and Readability for e-mail/desktop shortcuts and Readable.
Kiro 15y ago
Read It Later beats both.
mmahemoff 15y ago
Revenue distribution is an interesting variation of Flattr.com's business model. Flattr is more general as it's a platform for distributing micro-donations to creators of music, games, etc., whereas Readability is specifically about publishing and effectively offers a product/service directly to micro-donators. You could see the same model being applied to other verticals.
codex 15y ago
Only one feature keeps me with Instapaper: Readability's crappy bookmarklet implementation. On my iPhone, I can save a page to Instapaper with a click of the bookmark. Readability, however, will throw up a prompt page asking me to confirm that I really want to save the page. The extra latency turns out to be really annoying in practice. If you're going to prompt, at least do it client side.
- zoul 15y ago
  I have installed the bookmark recently and on the iPhone it does not ask for confirmation. Maybe they have changed the code?
rdl 15y ago
I really like Instapaper. I only really use it within the iOS ecosystem, and only by adding articles directly from the instapaper site, or from longreads or longform. I use an ad blocker anyway, so the sites aren't losing out on marginal ad revenue from me. Maybe Readability or Read It Later are better, but instapaper is the first one I found, and I'm happy with it, and have a queue of about 500 nice articles built up, so I'm not likely to switch unless I see a better reason than "Marco is a bit presumptuous in podcasts" and "a competing site integrates a tipjar."
tdtran 15y ago
I used Instapaper for quite a while, even wrote a small Android utility app to quickly bookmark a link to my Instapaper account and read it later on a bigger screen. But it was a long time ago. I use Read It Later these days. Simply because it's a better product than Instapaper. It runs on all devices I own and use daily: iPhone, Android phone and tablet, MacBook, Linux laptop, Linux workstation. I bought Instapaper app and still have it on my iPhone mostly to check if its latest update has anything great which I miss in RIL. Nothing. PS Marco's personality certainly "helped" me switch. But it's minor.
donniezazen 15y ago
I do not like to use ad-blockers but ads have made internet really impossible to use. Some sites have few layer of ads before you can actually access the content. I feel content providers don't respect their customer by putting hundreds of ads on their website. You do not always appreciate intrusive ads like music or video or resource intensive flash. If content providers can be considerate of the number of ads they put on their website, I will not have to use ad-blocker at all. Read-It-Later is the only solution on Android, so, I go with it.
OpieCunningham 15y ago
Following this train of thought simply leads to a further moral dilemma. If the concern is that Instapaper is bad because it bypasses the content providers income methodology then Readability is also bad because it does the exact same thing. The only difference is that Readability has created their own income methodology, of which a portion they feed back to the content providers (sometimes). At no point does either service require a content provider opt-in before the service's users are able to pull content from the providers. I believe Instapaper has an opt-out function for content providers whereby Instapaper users are prevented from adding that content providers content to their Instapaper account. Does Readability have that opt-out capability as well? If not, Readability could very well be considered worse than Instapaper on a moral scale since Readability then becomes a form of blackmail: agree to accept payment for your content that we decide is just, otherwise we'll simply eliminate your existing payment method anyway. I fail to see how any moral analysis of either service could conclude one is good and the other bad. They are both bad from the perspective of the average content provider. Half measures, and possibly blackmail, do not assuage the moral concern.

59 points by agperson 15y ago

rmm 15y ago

I left because I felt readability has a lot more features I like. The ability to hit ` on any webpage is awesome. I am also a click away from saving the article. The latest iteration of Instapaper looks nicer in some ways, (looks like Reeder was an inspiration), but is painfully annoying in others. i.e I now have to touch twice to delete an article. Instapaper needs a stripped down Lite version that all it does is show articles and then let you delete them. My 2c.

masklinn 15y ago
> The ability to hit ` on any webpage is awesome. What does that do? > I am also a click away from saving the article. So're you in Instapaper? Depending on the browser you're using anyway, I guess. There's an official bookmarklet (1-click in browsers which still have bookmarks bars) and there is probably a chrome/button extension for your browser (I see a dozen or two on the Chrome extensions site)

_frog 15y ago

Regarding the thought that Instapaper is somehow robbing writers of ad revenue, I think it needs to be noted that you actually have to visit an article to add it to your Instapaper queue. On top of that, Readability's model of paying authors isn't all that effective, a recent article on The Brooks Review[1] showed that even a moderately popular site such as his generates nearly no income from Readability's service, especially now that the service has gone free with optional payments. Also, what happens to all those authors that don't opt in to receive payments from Readability? Does readability just take money on their behalf and not actually pay it out to them? It seems like that would be a legal grey area. [1]: http://brooksreview.net/2012/03/readability-ios/ http://brooksreview.net/2012/03/readability-ios/

duck 15y ago
it needs to be noted that you actually have to visit an article to add it to your Instapaper queue That isn't true. Lots of sites/aggregators add "Read it later" buttons to articles so it will go right into your queue and then there is the "Browse" page on Instapaper itself where you can add articles as well.
- _frog 15y ago
  Fair point, some Twitter clients let you send a tweeted link straight to Instapaper too, but in my experience the overwhelming majority of links I add come from me using the bookmarklet when I visit a web page.
dmazin 15y ago
I know that lots of services let you add to Instapaper, but with Instapaper itself it's impossible to add articles without visiting them. I think I recall Marco talking about the fact that this is on purpose for the previously stated concerns. Also, Instapaper doesn't let you stitch articles broken up into multiple pages.
- _frog 15y ago
  Actually multi-page stitching just got added to the browser bookmarklet, relevant blog post: http://blog.instapaper.com/post/18556429689 http://blog.instapaper.com/post/18556429689
  - iamclovin 15y ago
    Marco previously felt uncomfortable implementing this feature (http://www.marco.org/2011/07/19/siracusa-multipage http://www.marco.org/2011/07/19/siracusa-multipage), so I wonder what prompted the change in policy.
- mmahemoff 15y ago
  "I know that lots of services let you add to Instapaper, but with Instapaper itself it's impossible to add articles without visiting them." I can understand his dilemma, but this policy unfortunately makes the social feature of Instapaper almost unusable. You want to Read Later a bunch of articles your friends have liked? You have to load each one of them up just so you can add it later.

motoford 15y ago

Do you feel guilty when you skip commercials on your TiVo? I don't, sorry. An ad on a page is no different than a billboard or some other passive advertising. I am not required to notice it.

sthatipamala 15y ago
There's a slight difference. Billboards don't help support anything of value to you (namely the road you are driving on). They are advertising for the sake of advertising. Commercials on radio/TV/web fund the content you are enjoying. Of course you can flip the channel or have AdBlock or whatever, but you're actively taking revenue away from the creator. You may not have a problem with that (I certainly don't).
bigiain 15y ago
http://blakemccreary.com/2012/03/banksy-on-advertising-quote/ http://blakemccreary.com/2012/03/banksy-on-advertising-quote... * "You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs." -- Banksy * Just one of _many_ hits on google reproducing it, I'm not endorsing that blog in particular…

duck 15y ago

I left Instapaper for Readability as well, but my reason was entirely different and a first for me (at least on the web): Marco. I'm not even sure what it is about him exactly, but after listening to some of his Build and Analyze podcasts and reading his slanted blog posts I just found myself not wanting to use or support Instapaper anymore.

reidmain 15y ago
I'm still listening to Build & Analyze but I'm one or two more nonsensical episodes away from removing it from iTunes. The earlier episodes were a lot better in my opinion. Conversation was focused much more on actual development and the way they talked about it was interesting to me. Now they talk about topics that they think are interesting to developers but I guess I'm no longer their target demographic. Like you I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something about Marco that just rubs me the wrong way. I think as Instapaper has gotten more popular it has gone to Marco's head and he has become a bit arrogant. His motto seems to be "this is how I do it and if you don't agree I don't care because it works for me and I'm making a lot of money". But it really doesn't matter in the end. Competition is always a good thing. Some people will stay with Instapaper, some people will be converted to Readability but Readability's free price tag should make a lot more people aware of this type of service. If Marco has the ability to keep up then both products should get better.
- Protonk 15y ago
  I was also frustrated by the sort of arrogant response to all the complaints about non-development topics. It's not like we can't have interesting shows about technical topics! Hypercritical and The Critical Path are proof enough with the same host. And I wouldn't even mind technical topics about coffee or thermostats (ok maybe I would mind about that). What kills me is the half-baked life coach bullshit that 1/3rd of Build and Analyze is turning in to. I don't need another person telling me how I should value my time. I read those posts from Joel on Software in 2004 just like Marco did.
  - reidmain 15y ago

Steveism 15y ago

As far as aesthetics go I actually prefer the approach Marco takes with Instapaper. I think Readability does have more of a polished feel but in no way does this polish make the service any more usable. The Instapaper apps are top notch in my book. The moral angle of feeling guilty and thus using Readabilty to compensate authors is total garbage. I disagree with this guilt trip blog post on so many levels. The 30% cut that Readability takes is the whole reason Readability exists. Essentially the writers are providing free content to Readability that they get to make a nice profit on. This is exploiting the writers to a far greater degree than Instapaper. Also, not every article I save I deem worthy of a contribution to the author. I may utterly hate an author's guts and am simply reading their article to better understand their insane philosophies before I decide I despise them. I'll fall back on an old Techdirt term: CwF+RtB. If I like a writer and want to support them I'll visit their site enough to earn them ad impressions, or I'll buy their book, or I purchase something using their affiliate link. I certainly don't need Readability paying people for me while pocketing a handsome chunk of change in the process.

athst 15y ago

I think Readability's model is a little presumptuous. Why do they get to decide unilaterally that they deserve 30% of the revenue? It's not like the App Store where you agreed to it. Given all the work that goes into creating an article, is extracting the text worth 30%? If I was a publisher, I wouldn't think so. To me, Instapaper's approach is much more straightforward. You have to have gone to the publisher's site in the first place and seen all of the ads. You pay a flat fee for the Instapaper app, and can subscribe if you like the service. Why make it more complicated than it has to be?

ryanwatkins 15y ago
Yes, Instapapers model is more straight forward, but you do not have to go to the publishers site and seen the ads, to add the article. Instapaper provides and API to add links without visiting the site that is used by a number of other applications. And I've written an app (http://www.ryanwatkins.net/software/papermache http://www.ryanwatkins.net/software/papermache - webOS and Android Instapaper app) that allows you to browser a feed of articles and add them to Instapaper directly.
masklinn 15y ago
> You have to have gone to the publisher's site in the first place and seen all of the ads Not entirely correct, there's an integrated API which lets third-party applications add articles to Instapaper. Many applications (Reeder for instance, or quite a few Twitter clients) have this feature.

ruswick 15y ago

As we all already know, Readability has been running what could be considered a scam by pocketing some of that money simply because the authors don't know about it. And, I really don't see why I would have a moral obligation to pay for every single article I read. Not every article is worth paying for. 90% of the stuff I read is trash. Plus, a lot of blogs offer their own ways to donate. If a writer is good, they'll get my money anyway. I'm not handing out cash to everyone, and I'm definitely not giving it to Readability.

ntoshev 15y ago

Like Instapaper, Readability doesn't have an android app, so any other advantage it may have is meaningless for me.

CarlHoerberg 15y ago
Instapaper has several (not offical, but good non the less) android clients: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.codecarpet.readingo.dev&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5jb2RlY2FycGV0LnJlYWRpbmdvLmRldiJd https://market.android.com/details?id=com.codecarpet.reading... https://market.android.com/details?id=com.homelinux.hilo.everpaper&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5ob21lbGludXguaGlsby5ldmVycGFwZXIiXQ. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.homelinux.hilo.eve.... there's only one readability client, which is not that good.... https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fahimk.readabilityclient&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5mYWhpbWsucmVhZGFiaWxpdHljbGllbnQiXQ. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fahimk.readability....
- badboy 15y ago
  I use InstaFetch on my Android phone: https://market.android.com/details?id=pl.immortal.instafetch https://market.android.com/details?id=pl.immortal.instafetch Even the Lite Version has everything I need: Saving links and from time to time even read them on my phone (now that I've got a Kindle that's not so often anymore)
Picknroll 15y ago
Readibility is working on an Android app (1). Marco, on the other hand, has repeatedly said he isn't interested in any other platforms besides iOS. (1) Readability app for iOS and Android 'coming soon' | The Verge http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/14/2797042/readability-app-ios-android-coming-soon http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/14/2797042/readability-app-io...

quinndupont 15y ago

Ever wonder if any publishers have actually collected any of your contribution? There's NO accountability about how much money actually makes it to publishers; since Readability does not seek the publishers, each publisher must be aware of their money, and go collect it from Readability, and if they do not, eventually it becomes Readability's. It's a great model, and the ethics are wonderful, but it suffers from this fatal flaw.

hasantayyar 15y ago

Instapaper has a great api and yes it is not usable as readability. But I can still use instapaper on any platform.

nuttendorfer 15y ago

I've left Instapaper and Readability for e-mail/desktop shortcuts and Readable.

Kiro 15y ago

Read It Later beats both.

mmahemoff 15y ago

Revenue distribution is an interesting variation of Flattr.com's business model. Flattr is more general as it's a platform for distributing micro-donations to creators of music, games, etc., whereas Readability is specifically about publishing and effectively offers a product/service directly to micro-donators. You could see the same model being applied to other verticals.

codex 15y ago

Only one feature keeps me with Instapaper: Readability's crappy bookmarklet implementation. On my iPhone, I can save a page to Instapaper with a click of the bookmark. Readability, however, will throw up a prompt page asking me to confirm that I really want to save the page. The extra latency turns out to be really annoying in practice. If you're going to prompt, at least do it client side.

zoul 15y ago
I have installed the bookmark recently and on the iPhone it does not ask for confirmation. Maybe they have changed the code?

rdl 15y ago

I really like Instapaper. I only really use it within the iOS ecosystem, and only by adding articles directly from the instapaper site, or from longreads or longform. I use an ad blocker anyway, so the sites aren't losing out on marginal ad revenue from me. Maybe Readability or Read It Later are better, but instapaper is the first one I found, and I'm happy with it, and have a queue of about 500 nice articles built up, so I'm not likely to switch unless I see a better reason than "Marco is a bit presumptuous in podcasts" and "a competing site integrates a tipjar."

tdtran 15y ago

I used Instapaper for quite a while, even wrote a small Android utility app to quickly bookmark a link to my Instapaper account and read it later on a bigger screen. But it was a long time ago. I use Read It Later these days. Simply because it's a better product than Instapaper. It runs on all devices I own and use daily: iPhone, Android phone and tablet, MacBook, Linux laptop, Linux workstation. I bought Instapaper app and still have it on my iPhone mostly to check if its latest update has anything great which I miss in RIL. Nothing. PS Marco's personality certainly "helped" me switch. But it's minor.

donniezazen 15y ago

I do not like to use ad-blockers but ads have made internet really impossible to use. Some sites have few layer of ads before you can actually access the content. I feel content providers don't respect their customer by putting hundreds of ads on their website. You do not always appreciate intrusive ads like music or video or resource intensive flash. If content providers can be considerate of the number of ads they put on their website, I will not have to use ad-blocker at all. Read-It-Later is the only solution on Android, so, I go with it.

OpieCunningham 15y ago

Following this train of thought simply leads to a further moral dilemma. If the concern is that Instapaper is bad because it bypasses the content providers income methodology then Readability is also bad because it does the exact same thing. The only difference is that Readability has created their own income methodology, of which a portion they feed back to the content providers (sometimes). At no point does either service require a content provider opt-in before the service's users are able to pull content from the providers. I believe Instapaper has an opt-out function for content providers whereby Instapaper users are prevented from adding that content providers content to their Instapaper account. Does Readability have that opt-out capability as well? If not, Readability could very well be considered worse than Instapaper on a moral scale since Readability then becomes a form of blackmail: agree to accept payment for your content that we decide is just, otherwise we'll simply eliminate your existing payment method anyway. I fail to see how any moral analysis of either service could conclude one is good and the other bad. They are both bad from the perspective of the average content provider. Half measures, and possibly blackmail, do not assuage the moral concern.