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Comment by mtmail | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand I like new free features, especially the search. On the other hand Instapaper got acquired by Pinterest (http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661) and if they no longer make money from premium subscriptions and the service is ads-free, then how will they generate revenue? Selling publishers premium spots in my reading queue?

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Either Pinterest is interested in running Instapaper at a loss, or they've found a way to make this financially worth their while.

Or they want to grow Instapaper at the expense of Pocket, and then do something else with it.

Disclaimer: I am a competitor to Instapaper and talk smack a lot.

Brian said:

> The value Instapaper provides to Pinterest in terms of parser capabilities and aggregate information about links is enough to justify the small operation cost of running the service.

Hi there,

Brian from Instapaper here. We will not be serving advertisements in your Instapaper queue. The value Instapaper provides to Pinterest in terms of parser capabilities and aggregate information about links is enough to justify the small operation cost of running the service.

I'm happy to answer any other questions you have.

Brian

I'm looking forward to features like finding related articles, a https://longreads.com/ like portal or more customizable weekly digests (lately it's all US politics which I don't care about). That said the usual 'click on read later, read article on the train' use-case works very well for me, no complains.

Try out https://factr.com - we're building out a concept called Streams which will help with digests and finding all the information on a given topic.

"I'm happy to answer any other questions you have."

How much did you grow since now, last acquisition and first acquisition?

Well I meant specifically with respect to going free. As a policy, we do not publish usage numbers.

What are you using this aggravate information for?

To better understand news and trending links on the web.

So it's like a human-powered spider to Pinterest?

Hi Brian,

I paid for Instapaper so that it could run in the interest of its users. If it's fully supported by Pinterest, then its value to users is secondary to the value of its data and technology to Pinterest.

Why can't I keep giving you money? I don't want any special features, just your undying loyalty.

The only way you can have an undying loyalty is by being the owner of the company, that's how capitalism works.

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