Hacker News Reader

Comment by jphackworth | Hacker News Reader

I love Instapaper, but it's especially interesting that Marco has been able to compete against larger groups like Readability and Apple's Reading List. I'm afraid it might be inevitable that he gets swamped by a constant stream of competitive features, unless Instapaper expands beyond 1 employee.

View on HN

As far as Apple goes, I think Marco's predictions are correct. First, Apple will never compete on a feature by feature basis because that would add too much complexity, and they'll be constrained unless they make a native app. Second, Apple's reading list has made me realize how much I can benefit from instapaper's important features like offline reading and footnote handling.

edit: Here's Marco's original article about Apple's Reading list http://www.marco.org/2011/04/30/lion-safari-reading-list

But if it's just a 1 person company he can afford to stay small and still be highly profitable.

Additionally Readability has stated that they're still figuring out their business model, where as Marco has had a steady income for a long time now. It's entirely possible that Readability vanishes in a few years and Instapaper is still around.

Agreed. From a casual observer's perspective Readability seems to have failed at a good idea and is now switching direction with no clear goal.

Evernote, however, has a pretty clear business model.

What evidence do you see that being a one-man operation is hurting his business? As far as I can tell Instapaper is still leading the field in features and quality...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com