Forum Posts Feed
Instapaper joins the Borg -- alternatives?
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Paul Korm
Aug 23, 2016 at 08:09 PM
Instapaper announced today it was joining the Borg—being acquired by Pinterest—with the typical announcement full of “nothing about our great product will ever change” glee that suddenly-flush buy-outs usually express. Personally, I wouldn’t want my profile being absorbed by Pinterest (though that’s probably too late), so I will close my account.
I’ve stopped using Evernote, and returned to doing all my article clipping to DEVONthink on the desktop and in iOS. Feels good not to use anyone’s cloud and having someone evaluating my clipping history to do targeted marketing and whatever with my data.
Which leads me to ask: what are you doing for a “clipping” service?
Posted by shatteredmindofbob
Aug 23, 2016 at 11:23 PM
Well, Pocket is the biggest competitor.
If you’re willing to get your hands dirty, there’s an open source clone called wallabag (https://www.wallabag.org).
This is quite unfortunate, Instapaper was one of the only web apps I’ve actually stuck with, besides Gmail and Pinboard and this acquisition does not bode well. I pretty much know Pinterest as that site that comes up in search results when I’m looking for DIY projects, only to be greeted with “YOU MUST GIVE US YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO EVEN *LOOK* AT THIS!!!” upon following the link.
I have a VPS, so I might just give wallabag a try, even if it looks a bit annoying to configure.
Posted by yosemite
Aug 24, 2016 at 05:29 AM
That’s unfortunate but unsurprising. Instaper was one of the best services. I’m sure they’ll be gutted or drained or just plain shut down, it’s just a matter of time.
bob, thanks for the wallabag mention, that looks interesting. I too am trying to wean myself from the Borg. gmail and workflowy are the last ones left that I still use regularly. I love workflowy, but the moment I figure out a desktop alternative (not org mode, I tried it) ... I’m gone.
...unless Notion.so or OctopusNote or something else draws me back in… :-)
Posted by tightbeam
Aug 25, 2016 at 11:35 AM
Good for Instapaper. Let’s wait and see how it turns out.
Posted by bigspud
Aug 26, 2016 at 07:00 AM
yeah, if only octopusnote was a plugin to devonthink!
And notion.so is pretty nice place to write.
devonthink is getting the hard work from me.