

Readmill shuts down, team joins Dropbox - anthonymonori
https://readmill.com/epilogue

======
ianstormtaylor
This is an incredibly, incredibly well done shutdown statement.

It explains clearly what happened; it isn't overly congratulatory to
themselves; it puts a clear emphasis on how their users can export their data;
it thanks those who helped them on the journey; it beautifully summarizes
everything they built and stood for, from the solid typography, to the
interactive timeline, to the team photos, to the simple, clean choice of a
"Epilogue" as the title. And it'll be the perfect homepage come July 1st too.

Sad to see such a high-quality product shut down. I've looked to Readmill for
design inspiration a lot over the past year.

~~~
joelrunyon
Really nice to see them handling it straight-forwardly instead of pretending
like it's an epic win for users when it's a really an acqui-hire. Props to
these guys for being honest.

------
markerdmann
This feels like a huge loss. Readmill stood head and shoulders above other
reading apps like Kindle and iBooks in terms of design. It was also one of the
few services that would let you upload ePub books to your account through the
website and then sync your library to your mobile device.

"Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels
sing thee to thy rest!"

I wish the team all the best at Dropbox, and I'm sure Dropbox will benefit
immensely from their remarkable talent for building amazing software. At the
same time, though, I wish they would have just started charging $10 a month
for the service!

~~~
briandh
> It was also one of the few services that would let you upload ePub books to
> your account through the website and then sync your library to your mobile
> device.

Google Books does this now

~~~
schwuk
Google Books is my preferred reading app for just this reason.

------
fennecfoxen
Well, at least they're not pitching it as a grand success for all, and won't
end up on
[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

~~~
gaelenh
Tip to engineers new to the startup world: If the startup you work for has any
success or traction, but runs out of money, you will be sold off as a team
like cattle. When startups shutdown, all assets -- servers, client contracts,
software, furniture, and teams -- will be sold off to recoup losses. You won't
have much say in it and it kind of sucks.

In fairness to the CEO's that broker these deals, they are probably trying to
make sure that their workers land on their feet. But it still sucks to realize
you and your friends are considered saleable assets.

~~~
qq66
Well, if you are an employee of an acquired startup, you always have the
option of leaving. The acquirer will try to make sure that between unvested
equity and retention packages you have enough incentive to stay, but it's
really your choice.

~~~
gaelenh
That's certainly one version of what can happen. Another version is that none
of the equity transfers to the new company. The acquiring company will offer
you a modest boost in salary and similar new stock options. If you don't take
the offer because they're low balling you or you don't like the new company,
your old company will terminate you at the end of the week without any
severance. Or the new company will offer everyone on the team 3 months
consulting contracts. Either way, better start familiarizing yourself with
COBRA.

Employees in the acquired company are put under heavy pressure to take
whatever deal is offered. Who wouldn't want to keep working with their
friends? The CEO's/senior team will keep the employees out of the loop so that
rank-and-file don't move first and take any negotiating power away from the
CEO.

Not every acqui-hire is a payoff for the employees in the acquired company. It
can also be a face-saving gesture when money runs out to make a shutdown look
semi-successful for the founders.

~~~
rdl
And you will get tired of deleting all the job offers and "let's have coffee
and talk about my startup" mails for the next few days until you find
something new.

Truly, having your company fail is a horrible thing, at least in Silicon
Valley right now. :)

------
antr
I'm a huge fan of Dropbox. Here is my long-term wishful thinking of their
acquisitions:

    
    
        - Audiogalaxy Dec 2012: online iTunes-like audio library, synced across/streamed to all of my devices
        - Snapjoy Dec 2012: online iPhoto-like experience, synced...
        - Mailbox Mar 2013: can Dropbox be the new Gmail? If Google search needs disruption, Gmail is no different
        - Zulip Mar 2014: online chat and team collaboration with file/screenshot/text/etc sharing integrated to a whole new level. Maybe Droplr/CloudApp on steroids
        - Readmill Mar 2014: online ezine/book library... maybe doc management?!  
    

Bottom line: to become everyone's all-in-one cloud, synced, folder. This would
be the platform, a _~ /user/_ in the cloud

PS: from their Sold and Endorse acquisitions I can only speculate that they
might have a(n) (e)commerce play in their mind.

~~~
untog
It's a nice thought. But as you state, they acquired Mailbox a year ago. As
far as I can tell there isn't anything to show for it in terms of an e-mail
product.

------
austinl
Readmill was without a doubt one of my favorite apps. It did one thing, and it
did it very well. Like many others, I wish it was going to be absorbed into
Dropbox (like Mailbox was last year) and remain operational. Perhaps there
will be some level of ebook integration in the Dropbox app in the future.

------
lcnmrn
Why not make Readmill part of Dropbox app ecosystem (e.g. Mailbox)? Just a
read, sync and backup app without the social network features. I really hate
to do all this manually with yet another service.

------
Zygar
I'm heartbroken by the loss of Readmill. Met some incredible people in the
margins of books, and have had long and thoughtful conversations with fellow
readers, authors, and myself.

Readmill have done an awesome job at giving us tools to rescue our data. But
where to put it? How can we keep getting value out of the time we've invested
into Readmill? I personally have over 600 highlights and tens of thousands
words written in the margins, now locked up in a big JSON dump.

A few of us have banded together to build a tool (
[http://readshelf.co](http://readshelf.co) ) to rehome your Readmill library.
It'll sync your Readmill highlights up until July 1 (and you can upload your
dump as well.) When Readmill shuts down for good, we're hoping there'll be a
nice replacement service that we can integrate with—giving you some continuity
with your library.

Of course, all of your stuff will be exportable in a useful format; lest
history repeat itself. In fact, we're really keen to hear suggestions on:

\- a sustainable business model for something like this

\- some best practices around _your_ data: access, portability, etc.

~~~
hongkonggong
Looks like Marvin supports Readmill cloud?
[http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/69175405146](http://blog.marvinapp.com/post/69175405146)
(I have yet to try though, and it's an old announcement.)

------
dangoldin
Damn. I'm more saddened by this than any other acquisition. Readmill is (was?)
just so much better than the alternatives.

------
schlagetown
Disappointed to hear this — they've made by far the best reading app for iOS,
and perhaps anywhere. The FAQ tries to preempt the "but why not implement X,
Y, or Z potential revenue model?" question by saying they didn't think
anything would work. But that's not satisfying; I don't want to believe that
there really was absolutely no solution that would've made it viable as a
business, or at least saved it from impending total shutdown. Always
interesting (though difficult) to read these "we're closing up shop" notices,
knowing how much history and context and problem solving went on behind the
scenes that we'll just never be privy to. Hope they continue to do great
things with the mobile reading experience at Dropbox!

------
eurosmoove
Any more on the apparent $8 million "acqui-hire" by Dropbox?
[http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/27/readmill-acqui-
hired/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/27/readmill-acqui-hired/)

------
jipiboily
What? Another service I start to use and shutdowns just a few days
later...sad!

That's a problem with free services, and sometimes even with some paid
services.

~~~
FigBug
I think it's a general problem with services.

I much prefer using desktop software, even when it's discontinued, it still
works.

I think the next big thing could be bringing App Stores to servers. 1 click
install, zero config, etc. I recently set up my own webmail, it was a pain in
the ass. It could be made a lot easier, and I think people would pay for the
convenience.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> I think the next big thing could be bringing App Stores to servers.

It doesn't get much easier than "yum install" or "apt-get install".

~~~
FigBug
I'm more thinking so the average person would have their own server for their
family, rather than the people who have servers now.

Sure "apt-get install" installs the software, but configuring it to do
anything useful is still anything but trivial. Installing Linux, creating a
user accounts, setting up an SMTP, POP & IMAP server, installing a webmail app
with spam filtering, making sure they all talk to each other, is hard.
Installing WordPress is the easiest I've seen, and you still need to create a
DB and copy the connection details.

I'm thinking of something as simple as you see a list of Apps (WordPress,
PHPBB, etc). Just click 'install' and pick the directory you want it installed
in. And you pay $.99 for the convince.

I think it would be good for the industry to move away from ad supported
services, and to let users pay to host the services themselves.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> I think it would be good for the industry to move away from ad supported
> services, and to let users pay to host the services themselves.

I somewhat agree with your perspective, but think its going to be a hard sell.
People buy apps because you don't have to think about it. Configuring a
service is in direct opposition of that convenience, and I don't think you'll
ever have enough training wheels in the interface to fix that.

I could be wrong.

~~~
FigBug
I said it 'could be' the next big thing, not it will be. I agree it's a long
shot.

Web Apps have been very good to developers. Zero piracy, no installation
issues, low support costs. Users like them because it's simple to get started,
they aren't tied to one computer. The downsides are all long term -- and it's
hard to get people to think about the future, or things like privacy.

I'm not sure where the drive would come from to make it happen. I don't see
which company would put in the investment to get it started.

------
joshmlewis
They mentioned no new signups were allowed but I still managed to sign up via
Facebook and created a new account. Not sure how to get a hold of them but
they might want to know that.

------
caseyf7
Any recommendations for a replacement?

~~~
marchdown
Take a look at [http://marvinapp.com](http://marvinapp.com). It has some fancy
typographic and organizing features. I found it not to my taste, but YMMV.

------
useraccount
jesus christ.

------
balladeer
What I felt bad about is all the bullshit they typed instead of just saying:

>> _Hey, we got acqui-hired by Dropbox and we are now shutting ReadMill down!
Thanks for all the fish and hope you enjoyed ours._

That's it. That's all it would have taken.

