The earlier episodes were a lot better in my opinion. Conversation was focused much more on actual development and the way they talked about it was interesting to me. Now they talk about topics that they think are interesting to developers but I guess I'm no longer their target demographic.
Like you I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something about Marco that just rubs me the wrong way. I think as Instapaper has gotten more popular it has gone to Marco's head and he has become a bit arrogant. His motto seems to be "this is how I do it and if you don't agree I don't care because it works for me and I'm making a lot of money".
But it really doesn't matter in the end. Competition is always a good thing. Some people will stay with Instapaper, some people will be converted to Readability but Readability's free price tag should make a lot more people aware of this type of service. If Marco has the ability to keep up then both products should get better.
And I wouldn't even mind technical topics about coffee or thermostats (ok maybe I would mind about that). What kills me is the half-baked life coach bullshit that 1/3rd of Build and Analyze is turning in to. I don't need another person telling me how I should value my time. I read those posts from Joel on Software in 2004 just like Marco did.
Their topics now seem to stem from random anecdotes from their lives and their "expertise" on these topics is questionable at best.
I fear what will happen is once Marco's child is born, half of every Build & Analyze episode will be about Dan and Marco's children and how they manage their time. It is their show and they can talk about that if they want but at that point they will have finally stopped talking about topics that matter to me.
Yeah. That'll be a mess. I'm a big 5by5 nerd, so I listen to almost all the main podcasts on there. And when I need advice about time management, I'll listen to Merlin. I don't need a half assed Merlin impression from someone with no employees or bosses.
You are right about it being their show. It's just a shame because I think it fills up a time slow in the 5by5 schedule which could be better utilized by finding someone who wants to talk about development topics. Without that discipline everything devolves into life-coach wankery.
Don't suppose you have any recommendations do you?
At some point with it's like athletes who shout political/religious beliefs until it overshadows their play on the field. I just stop following them. Which is too bad because I liked what Marco said about other tech issues and coffee.
Comparing the two, they have the exact same functionality that I care about and Readability has a Chrome extension which is a lot better in the Instapaper bookmarklet to me.
Instapaper does have a collection of previous articles that I still want to read which makes the scales basically even but Marco's arrogance and his...I don't know if sense of entitlement is the right description but regardless I don't have the urge to suport him just because he is the "little guy".
For iOS user's I think Readability and Instapaper are interchangeable but the big difference will be Readability's Android support. Marco is on record saying he will never have an Android version because he never wants to hire anyone. He always wants Instapaper to be a one man operation.
In the end competition is good. Hopefully Readability will bring some new ideas to the table and if Marco has the capacity to either keep up with them or innovate in other ways then these "save to read later" tools will just get better.