
Instapaper is going independent - uptown
http://blog.instapaper.com/post/175953870856
======
zulrah
Instapaper is still not available to users in EU. It's been to months. I
started to use Pocket because of this and now I don't think I'm coming back.

~~~
howitworks
I don't mean to sound trite or dismissive, but the blame should be directed at
EU legislators.

If I create another software product I will explicitly and permanently make it
unavailable to EU residents.

~~~
bartread
This narrative has long since become tired.

If you don't respect your users' privacy you don't deserve to do business in
the EU. And make no mistake: whether you like it or not, that legislation - or
something very like it - is going to jump the Atlantic sooner or later, so why
not position yourself ahead of the curve instead of stropping off and taking
your ball home?

There are side-effects I don't like about GDPR, like the endless bombardment
of overwrought cookie consents on every site I visit (definitely something
that degrades the experience of the web), but I _do_ like the fact that my
privacy _has_ to be respected by corporations.

~~~
HatchedLake721
Cookie notifications have nothing to do with GDPR.

~~~
bartread
Tell that to all the companies implementing them. Now, if you click on the
option to configure your cookie options you're presented with an often
bewildering list of different cookie types that companies use for a variety of
purposes. By either clicking "yes to all" (or similar) or selecting individual
items from the list (or deselecting all) you're supposedly providing the
informed consent that GDPR requires. Frankly I think often this is so
confusing as to make a mockery of the whole process.

------
dfabulich
[https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1018903893814775810](https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1018903893814775810)

> Some clarification from a Pinterest spokesperson: The two employees
> Pinterest brought on from the Instapaper acquisition will continue working
> at Pinterest and run Instapaper independently on the side. So sounds like
> Instapaper wasn’t really working out inside of Pinterest.

------
brad0
From what I’ve seen this is usually what happens when the parent company wants
to close the service down. First they spin off the service into its own
company then the company shuts down because of a lack of income.

Is that what’s happening here? What’s the name of this process?

~~~
bthdonohue
Hi Brad, Brian from Instapaper here. Just want to reassure you that's not the
case here, we intend to operate Instapaper for the foreseeable future. We made
this decision because we believe it’s best for both Pinterest and Instapaper.

~~~
dfabulich
_Why_ is this better for Pinterest and/or Instapaper?

In the 2016 blog post announcing the acquisition:
[http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661](http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661)

> All of these features and developments revolved around the core mission of
> Instapaper, which is allowing our users to discover, save, and experience
> interesting web content. In that respect, there is a lot of overlap between
> Pinterest and Instapaper. Joining Pinterest provides us with the additional
> resources and experience necessary to achieve that shared mission on a much
> larger scale.

Is that no longer true? Was it ever true?

~~~
throwawaymath
Look at Brian's comment history:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue).

He's not active on HN, but he jumps in for quick damage control and
"clarification" when people have vaguely privacy-related or operational
questions about Instapaper. When followup questions are posed, particularly
more difficult ones, he never responds. So I find it very unlikely you're
going to get an answer here, because this account is clearly designed to do
low-touch public reassurance without much commitment or transparency.

Now take a look at Instapaper's privacy policy:
[https://www.instapaper.com/privacy](https://www.instapaper.com/privacy). In
particular, direct your attention to the following, under "The Way We Use
Information":

(P1) _We use the information you provide to operate Instapaper 's features. We
do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent
necessary to accomplish Instapaper's functionality._

(P3) _We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design
Instapaper, to suggest popular content to users, and to share with advertisers
and publishers. For example: ..._

(P6) _In the future, we may sell, buy, merge, or partner with other companies
or businesses. In such transactions, user information may be among the
transferred assets._

The "License Grant" section of the Terms of Service is also good reading,
because it indicates that they can use user data in perpetuity, even after
closing your Instapaper account (presumably until you explicitly request your
information being deleted). What do you suppose that is used for? Maybe Brian
can enlighten us.

My hypothesis is that Instapaper, either from the outset or somewhere prior to
being acquired by Pinterest, developed a monetization model dependent upon
selling user data (or derivative analysis/features of user data) to third
parties. Most likely this is provided for market research or advertising
optimization. Note that in their Privacy Policy Instapaper also states they
use cookies "and other tracking technology" (and they specifically do not
enumerate the full number of reasons which they do so, aside from normal login
and session maintenance) in their Privacy Policy.

Further, I'm going to go ahead and assume this can be explained through basic
cynicism. This monetization model was probably never terribly significant for
Pinterest, except insofar as it was useful for internal discussions and
inspirations for ways Pinterest could improve upon their own user data
analysis. When GDPR came along, this probably tipped the scales to make
Instapaper a net liability for the company (and not one in line with its
financial or brand goals). Thus we have Instapaper being cut lose, yet again.

~~~
bthdonohue
I read HN regularly, but I'm pretty much a lurker on all social channels. When
there's a conversation relevant to me or the products I work on, I like to
jump in to represent the relevant company or products.

With respect to follow ups, I usually respond and move on to other things. I
do my best to be open and transparent in online communities like these.

Moving onto your privacy concerns there are two things I'd like to say...

* Instapaper has always done hard deletes of user data when you delete articles or your account, it's been done that way since the Marco days.

* We have never monetized using user data, or developed any type of special targeted advertising for Instapaper.

~~~
throwawaymath
1\. If Instapaper "hard deletes" user data when a user deletes their account,
what precisely does the License Grant language mean when it states Instapaper
has a "worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, fully paid,
sublicensable and transferable license" to the User Content "including after
your termination of your Account or the Services."? This is from "Instapaper
Application License", section (a) of the Instapaper Terms of Service [1].

2\. You've just said, "We have never monetized using user data, or developed
any type of special targeted advertising for Instapaper." How is this
statement congruent with paragraph 3 of "The Way We Use Information" in the
Instapaper Privacy Policy [2]? Quoting:

 _\- We may tell an advertiser or publisher that X number of people visited a
certain area on our website

\- We may tell an advertiser or publisher that X number of people bookmarked Z
stories from a particular site or topic._

I'm going to be blunt with you, Brian: I don't believe what you're saying to
me right now. At best I believe you're stating things which are superficially
true but skating around the spirit of people's intent when they ask about
privacy policies and how user data is being used.

Unless you have a fantastic answer for these two questions, I don't see how
what you've just said is reconcilable with your privacy policy or terms of
service. Literally "selling" user data is not the only way in which user data
is monetized. Monetizing user data by providing derivative or curated
analytics pertaining to that data is also substantial monetization of that
user data. If advertisers developed their own special targeting for Instapaper
users _on or off the Instapaper platform_ based on the data you shared with
them, then as a matter of fact _yes_ , you did help in developing specialized
targeting for advertisements.

To summarize thus far: you have effectively given me a non-answer, in
consideration of the statements on Instapaper's TOS and Privacy Policy. And
despite taking the time to respond to my comment (presumably because I
challenged you directly), you have not responded to the parent commenter who
originally asked you the question that started this thread.

EDIT: I'm not sure what's triggering these downvotes, but if someone
downvoting has a substantial refutation or insight, it would be nice if you
shared with the class instead of just pressing a button. As it stands Brian
has not responded to the substance of my point, and it seems virtually self-
evident according to the Privacy Policy that Instapaper monetizes user data.
It's not much of a leap from there to assume that this revenue was no longer
worth it for Pinterest after GDPR came into effect.

__________________________

1\. [https://www.instapaper.com/terms](https://www.instapaper.com/terms)

2\. [https://www.instapaper.com/privacy](https://www.instapaper.com/privacy)

~~~
comex
Your quotes from the privacy policy do not describe “targeted advertising”.
Indeed, the section you quoted from has this preamble:

> We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design
> Instapaper, to suggest popular content to users, and to share with
> advertisers and publishers.

and this afterwards:

> When information is used in this or a similar manner, we do not disclose
> anything that could be used to identify the individuals on whom the
> information is based.

I suppose using aggregate data in that manner could technically be described
as “monetiz[ing] using user data”, but it’s not the type of activity most
people are worried about (nor, incidentally, something that would implicate
the GDPR).

As for the ToS license grant, it’s presumably the type of cover-your-ass
wording lawyers always put into those agreements. I’m not a fan of the
practice myself, but it’s not really evidence that Instapaper does, or intends
to, use user data after deletion. Also, it might be intended to address
backups, though I’m just speculating.

------
bonaldi
Was GDPR _so_ terrifying that they had to sell it off?

~~~
jakobegger
Background Info for users outside of Europe: Instapaper has been geoblocked
for European users for the last two months.

~~~
rjvbk
Is it still blocked? It works here, but some geo DBs locate me in Russia
because my ISP bought the IP address I use from there recently.

~~~
bumholio
Still blocked for me. C'mon now, I get it as an emergency measure, I get it
when LA Times does it since they aren't interested in European visitors; but
this here is just plain lazy.

~~~
chmars
Nobody is really GDPR-ready, however, data privacy law is about being good
enough. Yep, there isn’t full compliance ever. Instapaper looks very desperate
with its GDPR-lockout of EU users. I guess the EU market is mostly lost …

~~~
adtac
If only the EU gave these companies a 2-year headstart to become compliant. Oh
wait.

~~~
briandear
Even if you are 100% compliant, that doesn't protect you from getting sued or
having to answer potentially hundreds of thousands of inquiries.

The compliance risk is what's dangerous and challenging, not the actual
"fixing" of systems. Many people in these comments seem to have no experience
with business risk management. They think it's as simple as "just make data
deletable." But, the technical side is the easy part. It's the getting sued
part that's potentially catastrophic. Even if you "win" you still have spent
thousands or tens of thousands defending. And even if you do win, you could be
sued again the very next day.

GDPR is more than just deleting data, it's a massive business risk to even
companies doing it "right."

~~~
flukus
> Even if you are 100% compliant, that doesn't protect you from getting sued
> or having to answer potentially hundreds of thousands of inquiries.

You can be sued at essentially anytime for any reason, long before the GDPR.
If you're worried about a GDPR lawsuit ruining your company then you're either
violating the GDPR or you should have shut down already because the risk was
already there.

~~~
throwaway37585
> If you're worried about a GDPR lawsuit ruining your company then you're
> either violating the GDPR

X is guilty of violating Y because they're worried about being sued for Y.
Interesting legal principle.

> or you should have shut down already because the risk was already there

X should shut down because of the risk of being sued for Y? What?

------
dejv
I am glad it happened and I hope they are going to find sustainable model.
I've been using alternatives for past two months as Instapaper was blocked in
EU and all those alternatives are horrible.

Good luck guys.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I admit I'm rather hoping they go back to something like the pre-Pinterest
"Premium" model, or perhaps better yet, just charge _everyone_ a modest amount
across the board.

~~~
dejv
+1 Instagram is (well it was) my everyday core app, something I can't really
live without. I am paying like 30 USD/year for RSS reader and I would gladly
pay same amount just to be sure the app is going to be alive in few years.

~~~
fastbmk
What RSS reader do you use?

~~~
dejv
Bazqux: [https://bazqux.com/](https://bazqux.com/)

Terrible name, great little product.

------
corobo
Excellent news!

Not been able to use it since GDPR came into play, assumed it was down to slow
large company -itis.

Peeved by it the point I was planning out my own replacement product for
Instapaper. Hopefully everything is back on track soon

~~~
m-localhost
Self-hosted Wallabag instance is great. I collect article there first, sync
them to pocket as a backup. (Wallabag RSS->IFTTT->Pocket)

[https://wallabag.org/en](https://wallabag.org/en)

~~~
corobo
Does it send articles to Kindle?

I had a look around and in an attempt to pre-empt - no, I'm not jailbreaking
my kindle

~~~
m-localhost
There are attempts with some serverside voodoo, but it doesn't look like it's
possible.

------
jxdxbx
I've been using Instapaper since the day it came out on the app store (never
saw the point of the web version). Pinterest has been the worst owner! There
used to be periodic improvements and updates. There's not even a full black
mode for iPhone X! In the old days Instapaper would have been the first out of
the gate with little features like that. Let's home there's an improvement.

Luckily the service is still better than Pocket, which has unusable
pagination, no ability to sort by length, and is generally just a cluttered
mess.

------
tomashertus
I have an off-topic question: After seeing their brand new buildings in SF in
SOMA area, I’ve been wondering about the Pinterest’s success lately. Does
anyone have any resources talking about their current trends, numbers and
their business model? Honestly, I lack the context, because I was so annoyed
by their spam on the Google’s search result pages that I started to use
queries with -site:pinterest.com. So, to me this is completely irrelevant
website.

------
raajg
I use instapaper solely for its 'highlight' feature. Strange that other read-
it-later apps don't provide it (at least in their free versions).

~~~
welanes
Lanes ([https://lanes.io](https://lanes.io)) has highlights - although
articles are secondary to tasks, for now. Diigo does highlights too, and
Feedly.

Agree that highlights are a brilliant feature - the next natural step after
saving an article is saving the best bits of that article.

------
subpixel
I can only imagine they dropped the $2.99/mo fee when Pinterest bought it b/c
the numbers were inconsequential.

Now that they will need income, they must be betting on the numbers being
robust enough to support a team of 5.

But I'm genuinely not sure if I'd pony up when they start charging again.

~~~
chmars
I am fine with paying a reasonable subscription fee for Instapaper. Privacy –
if guaranteed – has its value too. (At the moment, Instapaper blocks EU users
because it’s obvious violating the GDPR, that’s troublesome …)

------
onyva
I’ll stick with Mozilla’s Pocket for privacy, durability and integration with
Firefox, emacs etc.

------
djhworld
I stopped using instapaper a few years ago, I found their HTML parsing didn't
play well with articles that had code in or used <pre> tags.

Might be much better these days but I can't try it out again because they've
blocked anyone in the EU

~~~
bambax
Same here.

------
reality_czech
Expect an insta-shutdown in a few months.

------
andrepd
Why would anybody use instapaper over pocket?

~~~
amatix
Instapaper sends weekly digests of new articles direct to my Kindle.

~~~
ksejka
shameless plug here, if you'd like to read pocket articles on kindle go check
out my free, open-source service -
[https://sejka.github.io/PocketToKindle/](https://sejka.github.io/PocketToKindle/)

------
jasaloo
I'm just curious b/c I use Instapaper but am surprised that it's risen through
the ranks here.

Are people bumping in this b/c of interest in Pintrest, or b/c they find
Instapaper an amazingly useful app?

If the latter, what else are you all using it for other than saving long
articles on plane flights w/o wifi?

~~~
andygates
I imagine their GDPR failure will be a reason it's interesting.

------
max_im
I'd imagine it might be a financial liability in light of the Pinterest IPO
that was pushed to 2019

------
tschellenbach
Anybody know any good APIs or projects that help you get the article content
for a given url? There is of course Mercury API, but are there any
alternatives?

~~~
k1m
Something I've worked on: [http://fivefilters.org/content-
only/](http://fivefilters.org/content-only/)

Actually uses the original Insapaper site-specific extraction rules (they were
hidden after Marco sold it I think) which can now be found here:
[https://github.com/fivefilters/ftr-site-
config/](https://github.com/fivefilters/ftr-site-config/) We get contributions
from users of Wallabag (good open source alternative to Instapaper/Pocket).

It also uses the original Arc90 Readability code ported to PHP to figure out
where the article content is without any knowledge of the site.

We sell the latest versions (AGPL licensed) but older versions go up in our
public repository: [https://bitbucket.org/fivefilters/full-text-
rss](https://bitbucket.org/fivefilters/full-text-rss)

------
nvr219
Should I switch to Instapaper from Evernote?

