The next generation of Instapaper

Marco Arment announcing the acquisition of his Instapaper on his blog:

I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We’ve structured the deal with Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.

Being upset that Marco is selling Instapaper would be the same as being upset that he ended his Build & Analyze podcast.  The biggest difference is that Instapaper isn’t ending, at least not anytime soon if the contract is written with as much focus on the future as Marco indicates in the post.  I’ve been a happy Instapaper user/subscriber for a long time and I don’t plan on jumping ship now. 

I have noticed a growing interest around the competitor Pocket, mostly since their last redesign and the launch of their Mac desktop application.  My concern with Pocket has always been that I didn’t need to pay to use their service.  Lately I’ve started to seek out services and applications where I have a clear picture of the relationship.  I pay for your application, I get to use the application and you get to feed your family.  With someone like Pocket, I have to question why they’re giving me such an awesome service for free.  Are the articles and videos that I save to read/watch later with Pocket being sold to for market analysis?  Is that data being provided in an anonymous format or does it tie directly back to me?  These are all reasons that I’ve stuck by Instapaper, even when something pretty like Pocket strolls by.

Congratulations to Marco and I look forward to his future efforts.

⭥ Site Index   |   ↻ Random Post