I want to hate this new classic lit reading app but I do not | Hacker News Reader

I want to hate this new classic lit reading app but I do not

lithub.com

28 pointsmlschmitt2315 comments

Kudos to the app's creator. Looking at the app review dates, it looks like the idea predated the one I posted on HN four months ago:

> Sounds like a start-up idea...

> "Don't have time to sit and read a novel during your busy schedule? Subscribe to receive carefully-curated and abridged novels via SMS. We will space out the texts during your busy day so you have the time slowly digest and experience the same novels your friends are talking about at the coffee shop, but on your own schedule."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31054389

I wanted to check out the app and found it hilarious that I had to go through a rabbit hole of links to other articles about the app to actually get to a direct link to the app. lithub --> mentalfloss --> WaPo --> AppStore

Any idea why articles do this--is it for engagement or SEO?

To save others the trouble, the App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/serial-reader/id1077180804

android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mschmitt.s...

Honestly, I'd guess it's just laziness and/or naivety; one publication does a story and puts in their referrer link, and then the person at the next publication just copy/pastes the link they found to the first story rather than doing the extra work to get the direct link. Then the next publication sees that story, and pastes a link to that one, etc...

To show that their perfect influencer personality has no unauthorized opinions or alternative.

https://www.serialreader.org

https://1paragraph.app

Oh yes, I was using this for a while to read an old serial, it's really great but I found I simply don't like reading on my phone, even small bits at a time. If they could pop a new chapter into my e-reader every once in a while that would be phenomenal.

So a chapter is like the tweet and the book is a twitter thread. Got it.

If I could get those segments via RSS...

Go on... build that!

Considering the books are public domain you could probably build your own RSS feed in about 20 minutes with a `wget` and a for loop.

Ha! I tried this at one point. Spent way more than 20 minutes and just got a partial collection of poems done https://github.com/felipeochoa/rsspoetry/

They're public domain books and the app is free.

Why the fuck does this spyware app need to upload your usage data about when and where and what you read? What is wrong with people?

> the app is free

I think I found your answer. Even then, paid apps/services still do that too.

In the Play Store, it just says it collects User ID, App Interactions, and Diagnostics, all for Analytical purposes. It doesn't seem like it collects location data.

I don't know if they really need User ID rather than some kind of instance indentifier, that's the only somewhat-shady thing I see.

Client IP is city level geolocation. When correlated with user ID and timestamp it gives city level travel history.

Collect enough points and it uniquely identifies a user.

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