R
Readability Blog
blog.readability.com · Company blog · on HN since 2011
The company blog of Readability, a service that reformatted web articles for easier reading and later paid publishers.
What HN saysHN commenters point to its June 2012 announcement about its revenue model and publisher payments, and to its open letter to Apple.
26HN people shared it
9linked it in comments
22stories submitted
862story points
12 years agolast shared
2011people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1An Open Letter to Apple on the Readability App rejection5 people · 478 points · first shared 2011 · 199 comments on HN
- 2Readability: An Important Announcement5 people · 153 points · first shared 2012 · 63 comments on HN
- 3The New Readability | Readability Blog3 people · 7 points · first shared 2011 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Readability service to become free1 people · 154 points · first shared 2011 · 61 comments on HN
- 5Introducing Kindle Support for Readability1 people · 27 points · first shared 2011 · 9 comments on HN
- 6Readability, Meet Android1 people · 8 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 7Meet the New Readability Mobile1 people · 6 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 8Readability for Android is Here1 people · 6 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 9Readability donates $10,000 to Django and ProPublica1 people · 5 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 10Readability for iOS Arrives March 11 people · 3 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 11Readability for iPhone & iPad1 people · 3 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 12Readability for iOS is now available1 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 13Tagging Comes to Readability1 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 14New Developer Tools in Readability for iOS1 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 15Topreads.com: A Birds-Eye View Into What Everyone is Reading1 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
zem · 2012-06-14
this comment, analysing the four combinations of opt-{in,out}-to-be-scraped x opt-{in,out}-to-get-paid is well worth reading:
http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/#comment-3419
recoiledsnake · 2011-06-09
So the following blog posts don't hold any such connotations for you?
https://www.iflowreader.com/Closing.aspx
http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/
And those are just the tip of iceberg. Is killing the dreams of small businesses built on months of blood and sweat and money for no good reason an acceptable practice?
y2bd · 2014-11-01
Reposting from down below: http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/
pferdefleisch · 2014-11-01
This is very similar to Readability's revenue model and you can see how that turned out. http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/
sp332 · 2014-08-15
Readability.com tried this, and couldn't get many sites interested in participating. http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/
cooldeal · 2012-01-13
>Apple takes a cut on sales because that's what store's do. If I sell cereal to a supermarket and you walk in and buy a box, the store does not give me all of that money. Why? Because the store worked hard to get that customer to walk in. Similarly Apple worked hard to make ITMS and App Store work, bringing millions of customers to the apps and music. And no one calls the supermarket's cut a tithe either.
The tithe reference is to the content, not the cut of the cost of an app, which Apple neither hosts nor delivers, but takes a 30% cut of.
Eg. http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/
Also, why can't your argument extend to ISPs? They have done all the hard work getting the customer, why shouldn't they be able to charge YouTube for allowing them to show ads to their customers?
umbrae · 2011-04-25
Associated blog post with a bit more detail is here: http://blog.readability.com/2011/04/the-readability-api-contest/
lukeschlather · 2011-03-05
>To be clear, we believe you have every right to push forward such a policy. In our view, it’s your hardware and your channel and you can put forth any policy you like.
http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/
Plenty of other examples here:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22It%27s+Apple%27s+hardware%22
bluekitten · 2013-12-27
Everytime a big company implements a feature or rolls out something, they affect companies working in that area.
You can find similar things about almost any company or person, but for some reason the bad things about Microsoft are always amplified.
For example, see how Google squashed Skyhook
http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-moto…
Aliyun and Acer prevented from launching a phone because of the secret rules of the "Open" Handset Alliance.
http://www.zdnet.com/cn/report-google-stops-acer-from-launching-aliyun…
Apple and the famed 30% cut of even sales from Apps, an example of how they used someone's OSS code in Safari and then banned them from the app store:
http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/
My point is that someone fed a steady diet of bad stories about one company while barely being exposed to good stories ends up not liking them and everyone knows how many tech sites and journalists and news sites like Slashdot and HN's bias in story selection because of the vocal minority who sometimes appear to be on a crusade of ends justifying the means.