
Oyster is shutting down - prostoalex
http://blog.oysterbooks.com/
======
ipsin
Taken without any external context, this release is nonsensical, probably
because they don't bother to say _why_ they're shutting down or _what_ the new
opportunity is.

"Looking forward, we feel this is best seized by taking on new opportunities
to fully realize our vision for ebooks." By... shutting down?

I would have appreciated a bit of plain-speaking here.

~~~
welly
Google have snapped up a bunch of their staff

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting-
down/](http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting-down/)

------
tiffanyh
I never understood Oyster business model.

My 81 year old father figured out years ago how to connect is Kindle to his
local public library.

He literally checks out nearly any book, all FOR FREE and reads it on his
kindle.

Maybe this is a US centric thing and Oyster was targeting international users.
But local libraries have been offering this service of digitally checking out
books (even current books) for free for nearly 10 years.

Don't get me wrong. I never like reading about businesses shutting down
because that implies people will be losing their job. I just never understood
this business to begin with, maybe someone could shed some light on what I'm
missing

~~~
philtar
> My 81 year old father figured out years ago how to connect is Kindle to his
> local public library.

I am a full time professional software developer and I do a lot of technology
things on the side and have a technology side business. It took me forever to
connect a kindle to my library, and when I did, most of the books I wanted
weren't available.

~~~
qq66
An example of "beginner's luck," which is often the tendency of experts to
overthink things when just trying the most basic thing often works. :)

~~~
bgilroy26
Also libraries and their features can be very regional.

------
nstart
Can someone explain the math here? 2012 they received 3M in seed funding. 2014
they received 14M USD. The picture on that boat shows 26 (?) people. So let's
assume 26 people were always in the company just for kicks.

Between 2012 October and 2015 September they ran out of 17M USD. That's a burn
rate of 5.67M USD per year.

For 26 employees, if we stupidly assumed no other costs, that nearly 218k USD
salary per year.

Obviously that's not right. Let's assume they paid an average of 100k USD per
year to each employee. That's 2.6M USD burnt for salaries. Which means that
infrastructure, ad spend, and administrative costs and taxes (?) came to just
over 3M USD per year.

And that's assuming they received ZERO money while they were running. Which is
of course a load of tosh.

I'm unaware of the US market's costs in running a business but those numbers
seem abnormal. Am I missing something here or does this seem plausible?

~~~
zaroth
Wages are at most 70% of the cost of an employee to a business, and possibly
as low as 50% of the fully burdened cost. For an employee to gross $100k on
their paystub (before their own taxes), a competitive employer in NYC is
likely paying a full burden (with payroll taxes, insurance, other benefits,
admin overhead, office space, and supplies) not too far from $218k.

~~~
nstart
Wow. That's amazing. I genuinely had no idea that the costs of running could
be that high. Thanks for sharing that info. It boggles my mind as to how much
money startups probably need just to stay break even.

~~~
x0x0
I think the parent's estimate is a little high, but here's what I know. w2
employers are responsible for

\- 6.2% SS + 1.45% medicare fica taxes

\- health insurance, of which the employer's share can easily run $1k/mo for a
couple in their 30s

\- 1.5% payroll tax if in sf, or 0.34% payroll tax for mta in nyc;

so if someone makes $100k in sf, the employer pays

    
    
       (1.0 + 0.0765 fica + 0.015 city payroll tax) * 100k
       + 12*1k health insurance
       + 12 * $1200 monthly rent
       + 12 * $100 snacks/office supplies
       + maybe $500/year for unemployment insurance and various other fees
    

totaling (1.0765 + 0.015) * 1e5 + 12*(1e3 + 1.2e3 + 100) + 500 = $137k. That
doesn't include any activities, hardware, or meals. If you buy lunch, a former
employer budgeted $14 per person day, so assuming 250 work days = $3500/year

~~~
zaroth
Another 0.9% ($939 max) for CA SDI, $250 workers comp, and the employer
probably has some sort of life & disability of their own as well, call it
another $500. Payroll & benefits admin for $500. $12k health insurance
contribution seems low, but I suppose population skews to 20s and single.

I do think 70% is about the _best_ you can really do ($142k), but I agree 50%
would be lavish. Throw in a regular dinner program, or some regular offsite
meals & entertainment doesn't hurt. Since 274(e) expenses are fully
deductible, IRS is basically paying for 35-40% of that annual picnic, holiday
dinner, Caribbean retreat, etc. so it's smart for companies to shell out some
real money for these outings.

~~~
x0x0
Thanks! I think there's also about $500/pp of various fees in CA; stuff
charged on the first $7k of income.

tangent: security via obesity is a cool idea.

------
minimaxir
It's worth noting that Oyster raised a total of $17M as of last year:
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/oysterbooks-
com](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/oysterbooks-com)

Runway has its limits.

~~~
macspoofing
Wow. What'd they burn it on?

~~~
EC1
AWS

~~~
eropple
I highly doubt that. Unless something was disastrously wrong in their design,
the opex for cloud services should have been _dwarfed_ by little things like
payroll and office expenses.

------
zzzmarcus
Oyster was something that Google Play or Amazon Kindle Unlimited will almost
certainly never be. The beautiful design and focus on details was just the
surface. It felt like a company run by people that are passionate about
reading and surfacing great books in engaging ways. There were no competing
interests--it was about the books and while they weren't perfect, that passion
was evident in everything they did. I, for one, will really miss them.

~~~
cwyers
Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles. Reading
books on phones is awful. Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can
come to reading on books.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles."

That, and an enormous selection.

"Reading books on phones is awful."

It depends on the phone. Many people are perfectly happy reading for hours on
a phone screen, particularly if they can choose the foreground/background
colours (e.g. white on black for someone with an AMOLED screen).

"Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books."

Well, in terms of display, it's the closest screens _have_ _come, but it's
unlikely to be the closest screens _can_ come.

But, the thing which makes reading on a Kindle Paperwhite a pain for me, is
that I can't flip through the book. Page turns are slower than on a paper
book. I can't use my fingers to mark two different parts of the book, and move
rapidly back and forth. Oh, and why can't I view images inline with the text?

~~~
zzzmarcus
I pay for Kindle Unlimited and can say first-hand that it has a terrible
selection of mostly self-published and second rate books. Kindle itself of
course has the best selection, but that's on a pay-per-book model.

The brilliant thing about Oyster was that they have so much first rate
material in their "unlimited" model. There are plenty of arguments to be made
about how many books you can read a month etc., but those arguments miss the
point. Oyster opened a whole new browsing mindset where you could see a book
cover, open it immediately and essentially flip through the book reading bits
here and there and re-visit it later if it piqued your interest enough. It's
unlike the library where, even in digital libraries, there are queues and
"holds" and checkout limits. It's unlike Kindle where you have to commit by
actually buying every book which becomes prohibitively expensive if you're
just browsing, or Kindle Unlimited where the selection is, as I previously
mentioned, dismal. It's hard to imagine until you've used it, but having been
an Oyster subscriber for a couple years, I can say it's a shift in the way I
think about books.

~~~
rahimnathwani
The way you feel about Oyster is the way I feel about Safari Books Online.
It's just so awesome for books about software and IT. I wish there were an
equivalent for other areas in which I have deep interest.

BTW I also really like Blinkist (a book summary site). They don't have as wide
a selection as GetAbstract, but the Blinkist folks are thoughtful about the
books they add, their summaries don't feel jarring, and the iPad app is smooth
as butter.

------
levifig
Oyster was interesting but not a really interesting option: while the app was
gorgeous, it didn't allow you to import books. I'm sure most people would
rather consolidate their ebook purchases, and Amazon or Apple are better
options for that.

I still miss Readmill, though… a LOT!! :(

~~~
dangoldin
Same here. Wish I had Readmill again.

------
CPLX
> With that, we will be taking steps to sunset the existing Oyster service
> over the next several months.

If you have a company with a product and the product is being discontinued is
it really so hard to just say that in English? The word "sunset" isn't even a
verb.

------
Nickersf
I have never heard of this product until it became discontinued - which sucks.

To me the statement reads like an adult explaining the horrors of war to a 5
year old who glorified war without knowing the reality. Was it really
necessary to wrap a simple notice of closure/costumer apology up in such an
overly tame and submissive manner?

Why not something concise:

"We sincerely apologize to our loyal customers, and potential future customers
that within x amount of time product y will be discontinued for various
reasons, which we are currently not at liberty of discussing in a public
forum. Thank you very much for your patronage and support. Foremost we are
ensuring that our existing customers receive the most professional and
respectful treatment.

Sincerely - company z team."

Less bullshit, more realshit.

------
vinceyuan
Is it fair to Oyster's investors? According to Engadget and Recode [1], _" a
portion" of Oyster's staff (including its CEO and co-founders) are jumping
ship for Google's Play Books division. In short, this is an indirect
acquisition -- Google is snapping up the core of the company without buying
all of its assets._

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting-
down/](http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/21/oyster-shutting-down/)

~~~
macspoofing
>Is it fair to Oyster's investors?

The alternative is ... what?

\-- Actually it looks like Google will pay back investors some or all of their
investment.

~~~
e28eta
From the linked recode article: "But sources said it will end up paying
investors, who put a reported $17 million into the company, for the right to
hire some of its staff."

That sure sounds similar to the anti-poaching agreements that Google, Apple,
etc already got in trouble for.

What makes this different? Why shouldn't it just be a free market for these
employees (and founders), and Google is free to offer that money directly to
them, instead of needing to pay off the investors?

~~~
detaro
Maybe avoid issues with non-competes or claims of "stolen" IP later.

Or maybe, if the founders negotiated a deal for the team to stay together an
investor might argue that that they are acting against the best interest of
the company and might try to hold them liable for that.

------
bryanlarsen
This post has been on the front page for 9 hours and yet no mention of their
most direct competitor, Scribd? Not a good sign for Scribd, that's for sure.

Both Scribd and Oyster had a much wider selection of books from major
publishers than Kindle Unlimited. They both had 3 of the big 5 publishers on
board.

Myself, I love Scribd, and I suggest you give it a try too. I haven't tried
Oyster because it wasn't available in my country.

------
sabrinaleblanc
So I'm not clear on this, was the employment agreement done before or after
Oysterbooks officially announced that it was shutting down? BC that makes a
difference...I find it odd that Google declined to comment to comment. Anyhow,
great idea and really sad that it didn't work out.

------
PhantomGremlin
It's too bad that Pud couldn't keep Fucked Company going. Back in the previous
boom/bust it kept us informed as dotcoms blew up left and right.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuckedcompany.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuckedcompany.com)

------
aqwwe
1-year-old post:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/2dpmma/is_there_a_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/2dpmma/is_there_a_popcorn_time_for_ebooks/)

------
ececconi
Kindle unlimited. Also, I don't think there's as big of a market as they
thought for people who wanted to pay one fee for all you can read.

~~~
dangoldin
I tried Oyster and ended up canceling after discovering that the books I
wanted weren't available. The case is the same with Kindle unlimited.

The problem is that publishers make sure that the high demand books just
aren't available via an "all you can read" plan so these end up with the
scraps.

~~~
cbhl
The alternative is a brick-and-mortar library system, where high demand books
have six-month-long waitlists. But at least those high demand books are
available.

------
joelrunyon
A shutdown notice with a photo of the team holding an "Oyster" flag on a boat.
Does anyone else find this amusing?

------
kp25
The Title "Oyster - Indirect Acquistion by Google" is apt compared to "Oyster
is shutting down" !!

------
sappapp
I love this app. Sad to see it go.

------
naz
Another one for Our Incredible Journey:

[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

~~~
kra34
It would be nice if somebody built a Product Hunt list for these since their
UI is much nicer than tumblr - "A curated list of exits!"

------
heyalexchoi
so... you're pivoting?

~~~
minimaxir
They were acquihired by Google.

[http://recode.net/2015/09/21/oyster-books-shuts-down-team-
he...](http://recode.net/2015/09/21/oyster-books-shuts-down-team-heads-to-
google/)

~~~
topherjaynes
man, that makes me even sadder.

------
carsongross
Credit freeze incomin', fellas.

SHIELD WALL!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTYz439cA5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTYz439cA5w)

