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Hi Brad, Brian from Instapaper here. Just want to reassure you that's not the case here, we intend to operate Instapaper for the foreseeable future. We made thi

Hi Brad, Brian from Instapaper here. Just want to reassure you that's not the case here, we intend to operate Instapaper for the foreseeable future. We made this decision because we believe it’s best for both Pinterest and Instapaper.

dfabulich 8y ago
Why is this better for Pinterest and/or Instapaper? In the 2016 blog post announcing the acquisition: http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661 http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661 > All of these features and developments revolved around the core mission of Instapaper, which is allowing our users to discover, save, and experience interesting web content. In that respect, there is a lot of overlap between Pinterest and Instapaper. Joining Pinterest provides us with the additional resources and experience necessary to achieve that shared mission on a much larger scale. Is that no longer true? Was it ever true?
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Look at Brian's comment history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue. He's not active on HN, but he jumps in for quick damage control and "clarification" when people have vaguely privacy-related or operational questions about Instapaper. When followup questions are posed, particularly more difficult ones, he never responds. So I find it very unlikely you're going to get an answer here, because this account is clearly designed to do low-touch public reassurance without much commitment or transparency. Now take a look at Instapaper's privacy policy: https://www.instapaper.com/privacy https://www.instapaper.com/privacy. In particular, direct your attention to the following, under "The Way We Use Information": (P1) We use the information you provide to operate Instapaper's features. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to accomplish Instapaper's functionality. (P3) We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design Instapaper, to suggest popular content to users, and to share with advertisers and publishers. For example: ... (P6) In the future, we may sell, buy, merge, or partner with other companies or businesses. In such transactions, user information may be among the transferred assets. The "License Grant" section of the Terms of Service is also good reading, because it indicates that they can use user data in perpetuity, even after closing your Instapaper account (presumably until you explicitly request your information being deleted). What do you suppose that is used for? Maybe Brian can enlighten us. My hypothesis is that Instapaper, either from the outset or somewhere prior to being acquired by Pinterest, developed a monetization model dependent upon selling user data (or derivative analysis/features of user data) to third parties. Most likely this is provided for market research or advertising optimization. Note that in their Privacy Policy Instapaper also states they use cookies "and other tracking technology" (and they specifically do not enumerate the full number of reasons which they do so, aside from normal login and session maintenance) in their Privacy Policy. Further, I'm going to go ahead and assume this can be explained through basic cynicism. This monetization model was probably never terribly significant for Pinterest, except insofar as it was useful for internal discussions and inspirations for ways Pinterest could improve upon their own user data analysis. When GDPR came along, this probably tipped the scales to make Instapaper a net liability for the company (and not one in line with its financial or brand goals). Thus we have Instapaper being cut lose, yet again.
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    And how does that factor in to the acquisition or spinoff?
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      See the last paragraph of my comment. That's my hypothesis.
  - GrumpyNl 8y ago
    Cant look at it, cause of Instapaper is temporarily unavailable for users in Europe
  - m_fayer 8y ago
    Great analysis, thanks. Your points make me wonder... If you're running a small successful and independent sass, that respects its users, and you want to move on. What do you do, if your only options are selling to a large company that won't respect your users, or shutting down? Is it plausible to find a buyer that will honestly maintain a user-respecting ethos? If not, then it seems that there are no good choices for a founder in this position.
    - troydavis 8y ago
      I know of one company which explicitly has this approach: http://tiny.website/ http://tiny.website/ > We won't try to flip your business in 3-5 years. We won't mess with your team and culture. We won't lock you into golden handcuffs or push complex deal terms. We won't ruin your life with months of unnecessary due diligence. We won't renegotiate and grind you on terms. > … > We started Tiny to create the buyer we wish we could have sold to. Background: https://medium.com/@awilkinson/the-berkshire-hathaway-of-the-internet-391a8ee83db https://medium.com/@awilkinson/the-berkshire-hathaway-of-the... To my knowledge, no one else makes similar commitments to both keep good things as-is and also to buy and hold indefinitely. At least from the outside, Tiny's model is unique.
      - ergothus 8y ago
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Synergies can turn out to not materialize post acquisition. Not a bad thing if the acquisition can be unraveled. Kudos to Pinterest for not just nuking Instapaper.
- mbesto 8y ago
  M&A guy here - despite what finance people will say, a majority of acquisitions do not end up realizing their planned strategy.
  - ergothus 8y ago
    Good to know, but to this specific case, if someone (basically) says "This is not a spinoff to let it die, but to flourish on it's own", it's nice to have them explain why they are credible when they (or previous company rep) previously said "This is not a purchase to let it die, to but to flourish as part of the collective". Just give an actual reason why this time will be different. I already know not to trust M&A statements unless they give specific plans.
    - mbesto 8y ago
      I can't agree more - I wouldn't trust an organization that can't explain that to you.
    - nine_k 8y ago
      I think the word "acquihire" would explain a lot.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      I'm guessing something changing between 2016 and now. Maybe it was rate of growth, or how well Instapaper fits into Pinterest's product strategy going forward. There's all sorts of reasons it might've made sense at the time to acquire them, and for it to make sense now to let them go. You tend to not get real answers to these kinds of questions from companies, though.
- Y_Y 8y ago
  This is the right kind of question to be asking. Huge, influential companies shouldn't get away with making bullshit statements that don't mean anything. At least they shouldn't get away with it as much as they do.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  It rarely makes any sense for a large multibillion dollar company to operate a tiny business that has no material impact on its financials. It's like Bill Gates owning a taco truck -- even though it might be a perfectly financially viable taco truck, it's always going to be just a little random thing he has, and pretty much any involvement he has with the truck's operator/management will be disruptive.
henryaj 8y ago
Are you going to comment on the ongoing GDPR saga?
drexlspivey 8y ago
Are you going to unblock EU users? If so when?
- GrumpyNl 8y ago
  They have to get there shit together. So looks like the USA users are screwed since they can not apply to GDPR
andygates 8y ago
From the EU, you shut it down two months ago. And (tinfoil /on) if you were planning on winding down, compliance development is exactly the kind of thing that would be stopped. Shutter that, prior to shuttering everything else.

dfabulich 8y ago

Why is this better for Pinterest and/or Instapaper? In the 2016 blog post announcing the acquisition: http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661 http://blog.instapaper.com/post/149374303661 > All of these features and developments revolved around the core mission of Instapaper, which is allowing our users to discover, save, and experience interesting web content. In that respect, there is a lot of overlap between Pinterest and Instapaper. Joining Pinterest provides us with the additional resources and experience necessary to achieve that shared mission on a much larger scale. Is that no longer true? Was it ever true?

throwawaymath 8y ago
Look at Brian's comment history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue. He's not active on HN, but he jumps in for quick damage control and "clarification" when people have vaguely privacy-related or operational questions about Instapaper. When followup questions are posed, particularly more difficult ones, he never responds. So I find it very unlikely you're going to get an answer here, because this account is clearly designed to do low-touch public reassurance without much commitment or transparency. Now take a look at Instapaper's privacy policy: https://www.instapaper.com/privacy https://www.instapaper.com/privacy. In particular, direct your attention to the following, under "The Way We Use Information": (P1) We use the information you provide to operate Instapaper's features. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to accomplish Instapaper's functionality. (P3) We use non-identifying and aggregate information to better design Instapaper, to suggest popular content to users, and to share with advertisers and publishers. For example: ... (P6) In the future, we may sell, buy, merge, or partner with other companies or businesses. In such transactions, user information may be among the transferred assets. The "License Grant" section of the Terms of Service is also good reading, because it indicates that they can use user data in perpetuity, even after closing your Instapaper account (presumably until you explicitly request your information being deleted). What do you suppose that is used for? Maybe Brian can enlighten us. My hypothesis is that Instapaper, either from the outset or somewhere prior to being acquired by Pinterest, developed a monetization model dependent upon selling user data (or derivative analysis/features of user data) to third parties. Most likely this is provided for market research or advertising optimization. Note that in their Privacy Policy Instapaper also states they use cookies "and other tracking technology" (and they specifically do not enumerate the full number of reasons which they do so, aside from normal login and session maintenance) in their Privacy Policy. Further, I'm going to go ahead and assume this can be explained through basic cynicism. This monetization model was probably never terribly significant for Pinterest, except insofar as it was useful for internal discussions and inspirations for ways Pinterest could improve upon their own user data analysis. When GDPR came along, this probably tipped the scales to make Instapaper a net liability for the company (and not one in line with its financial or brand goals). Thus we have Instapaper being cut lose, yet again.
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  And how does that factor in to the acquisition or spinoff?
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    See the last paragraph of my comment. That's my hypothesis.
- GrumpyNl 8y ago
  Cant look at it, cause of Instapaper is temporarily unavailable for users in Europe
- m_fayer 8y ago
  Great analysis, thanks. Your points make me wonder... If you're running a small successful and independent sass, that respects its users, and you want to move on. What do you do, if your only options are selling to a large company that won't respect your users, or shutting down? Is it plausible to find a buyer that will honestly maintain a user-respecting ethos? If not, then it seems that there are no good choices for a founder in this position.
  - troydavis 8y ago
    I know of one company which explicitly has this approach: http://tiny.website/ http://tiny.website/ > We won't try to flip your business in 3-5 years. We won't mess with your team and culture. We won't lock you into golden handcuffs or push complex deal terms. We won't ruin your life with months of unnecessary due diligence. We won't renegotiate and grind you on terms. > … > We started Tiny to create the buyer we wish we could have sold to. Background: https://medium.com/@awilkinson/the-berkshire-hathaway-of-the-internet-391a8ee83db https://medium.com/@awilkinson/the-berkshire-hathaway-of-the... To my knowledge, no one else makes similar commitments to both keep good things as-is and also to buy and hold indefinitely. At least from the outside, Tiny's model is unique.
    - ergothus 8y ago
toomuchtodo 8y ago
Synergies can turn out to not materialize post acquisition. Not a bad thing if the acquisition can be unraveled. Kudos to Pinterest for not just nuking Instapaper.
mbesto 8y ago
M&A guy here - despite what finance people will say, a majority of acquisitions do not end up realizing their planned strategy.
- ergothus 8y ago
  Good to know, but to this specific case, if someone (basically) says "This is not a spinoff to let it die, but to flourish on it's own", it's nice to have them explain why they are credible when they (or previous company rep) previously said "This is not a purchase to let it die, to but to flourish as part of the collective". Just give an actual reason why this time will be different. I already know not to trust M&A statements unless they give specific plans.
  - mbesto 8y ago
    I can't agree more - I wouldn't trust an organization that can't explain that to you.
  - nine_k 8y ago
    I think the word "acquihire" would explain a lot.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    I'm guessing something changing between 2016 and now. Maybe it was rate of growth, or how well Instapaper fits into Pinterest's product strategy going forward. There's all sorts of reasons it might've made sense at the time to acquire them, and for it to make sense now to let them go. You tend to not get real answers to these kinds of questions from companies, though.
Y_Y 8y ago
This is the right kind of question to be asking. Huge, influential companies shouldn't get away with making bullshit statements that don't mean anything. At least they shouldn't get away with it as much as they do.
ggg9990 8y ago
It rarely makes any sense for a large multibillion dollar company to operate a tiny business that has no material impact on its financials. It's like Bill Gates owning a taco truck -- even though it might be a perfectly financially viable taco truck, it's always going to be just a little random thing he has, and pretty much any involvement he has with the truck's operator/management will be disruptive.

henryaj 8y ago

Are you going to comment on the ongoing GDPR saga?

drexlspivey 8y ago

Are you going to unblock EU users? If so when?

GrumpyNl 8y ago
They have to get there shit together. So looks like the USA users are screwed since they can not apply to GDPR

andygates 8y ago

From the EU, you shut it down two months ago. And (tinfoil /on) if you were planning on winding down, compliance development is exactly the kind of thing that would be stopped. Shutter that, prior to shuttering everything else.