10 ms·

Instapaper is still not available to users in EU. It's been to months. I started to use Pocket because of this and now I don't think I'm coming back.

by zulrah 8y ago

bthdonohue 8y ago
Hey zulrah, we are working on GDPR and plan to have the service available in the EU as soon as possible. Hope to have you back on Instapaper when we become available in the EU again. Really sorry for the inconvenience.
- TillE 8y ago
  Isn't that exactly what you said a couple months ago? At this point it's pretty concerning that you still have nothing to say publicly except "we're working on it", no detail, no schedule, no nothing.
  - kevingadd 8y ago
    Well, considering there are apparently only two people working on Instapaper, it's not hard to come up with reasons why it might take more than two months or why they might not be conducting a detailed PR campaign about it
    - corobo 8y ago
      Short of selling everyone's reading habits to the lowest bidder.. what on earth needs changing? Edit: To clarify I'm not saying they do that, I just can't see what part of GDPR they're having trouble with
      - oh_sigh 8y ago
        Perhaps that's because you are not a part of the corporation. Why would you expect to have insight into their operations?
        corobo 8y ago
        I don’t expect that, I’m wondering out loud in the hopes someone may be able to shine a light on something I’ve not considered From my point of view they store a list of URLs and provide a way to nicely view the content of those URLs. What in that could be causing 2 months of downtime to fix?
    - hk__2 8y ago
      Well, considering that GDPR has been voted two years ago and is based on 20-years-old EU privacy laws, even if it took 6 months or 2 years it still wouldn’t be a valid excuse. Also, giving a bit of detail or a minimal schedule is easier than a PR campaign. It’s called transparency, and it works even if you’re alone on a project.
      - briandear 8y ago
        Except "20-years-old EU privacy laws" didn't risk 4% of global revenue. It also didn't risk activist lawsuits. https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/25/17393766/facebook-google-gdpr-lawsuit-max-schrems-europe https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/25/17393766/facebook-google-... Funny thing how DailyMotion isn't getting sued, but YouTube's parent company is.
        icebraining 8y ago
        There's nothing funny; nobody uses or cares about DailyMotion. Also, nobody got sued, ignorant reporters notwithstanding. Schrems only filed complaints with the regulators.
        hk__2 8y ago
        > Except "20-years-old EU privacy laws" didn't risk 4% of global revenue. It also didn't risk activist lawsuits. That’s the point. When there’s no risk, nobody cares about their users’ privacy. That’s not an excuse for shutting down now that it’s legally risky to disrespect your users.
  - Kiro 8y ago
    And you have no understanding to the current situation? You know, the very reason this thread is here to begin with.
- coldtea 8y ago
  I don't think you can piss on customers for 2 months and then drop a "sorry for the inconvenience". And for no good reason. Just assume the improbable cost of some litigation as a company, like tens of thousands of others (including much bigger and much smaller than yours) did, put up a message to European customers and have them click and proceed as usual to the service. Or, you know, use the headstart of more than a year before the law was put into practice to get the service in order...
  - bartread 8y ago
    I'm not sure why the above is getting downvoted. Sure, it's a bit salty, but if I were paying for instapaper (which I realise is cheap as chips, but the principle still stands) I don't think I'd be very impressed with being locked out for two months. Genuine question: as an EU citizen, without the use of a VPN or proxy is it still possible to at least log on to the service to cancel your account?
    - s17n 8y ago
      I never understand why people assume that services that charge money will be more responsive to users' concerns than free services. You are worth the revenue that you generate, whether that money comes from you paying or indirect means like advertising doesn't matter to the company at all.
    - hermitdev 8y ago
      Not an EU citizen, but I'd think it'd be pretty shady if they cut you off and didn't automatically suspend any subscription charges until they can properly serve you again.
      - tedmiston 8y ago
        > and didn't automatically suspend any subscription charges Instapaper is not a subscription-based service. The product is completely free on all platforms today. I think the app was a one-time purchase at launch but it has been free for many years. All of the Premium features were also made free when Premium was discontinued in 2016 shortly after the Pinterest acquisition.
- tobylane 8y ago
  When did you start on the GDPR-related work?
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  To be honest, nothing about GDPR compliance was a surprise. The law was passed in 2016. That's plenty of time get your house in order, and yet here you are over a month past due, with an oops, sorry. What gives?
mszcz 8y ago
Same here. I could understand some downtime if GPDR was suddenly sprung on them but everyone had time to prepare. I could also understand them not caring about me as a single user (not deluded here), but since I pay for the service I'm sadly all fresh out of understanding. Instapaper has been great but Pocket doesn't seem to be lacking much as far as what I need.
- joering2 8y ago
  Which part of GDPR is confusing to you? They did their research and turned out that in terms of profits the market is unstable if you want to open yourself up to potential GDPR litigations you are riskin more than its worth it. Don’t wait anymore. They probably not coming ever again unless GDPR is voided.
  - mszcz 8y ago
    Wait, what? I didn't say GDPR was confusing to me. Also, they said they'll be compliant in some time in the future so I don't really see what you're getting at here. Hope it's just a misunderstanding ;) The thing is I don't want to be without such a service for a longer period of time so I'm sadly probably not coming back.
  - dasil003 8y ago
    Oh please stop with this FUD already. Risk assessments on GDPR litigation are blown wildly out of proportion. If we approached the risk of all laws in all jurisdictions this way, we'd just wake up and commit seppuku every morning. The only services that actually need to shut down are ones that are monetizing based on personal data. Small SaaS services that aren't doing that can be fully GDPR compliant with a little bit of copy writing and self-service options for deleting/downloading personal data, and even if you don't do all that, in all likelihood, on the off chance that they actually get significant complaints about small services, regulators will give you a chance to justify your stance and make necessary remediations before throwing the book at you.
    - kjeetgill 8y ago
howitworks 8y ago
I don't mean to sound trite or dismissive, but the blame should be directed at EU legislators. If I create another software product I will explicitly and permanently make it unavailable to EU residents.
- kuschku 8y ago
  EU legislators gave you 20 years of discussing the law in public, 2 years between passing the law and it coming into force. That’s more than enough time.
- wierd0 8y ago
  A war on GDPR sounds kind of trite though.
- Chilinot 8y ago
  If your product can't follow the GDPR legislation then I'm glad you don't allow EU residents to use it. Since you are most likely abusing the privacy of your customers. While I'm a bit annoyed at the amount of paperwork and side systems that need to be constructed to ensure proper handling of personal data that I have had to implement, I can only see GDPR as something positive for the people.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ipqk 8y ago
    I removed all my apps from the EU, and I will no longer publish any future apps there unless they become wildly successful in another country first. My apps are tiny, free, and just not worth the hassle of figuring out what GDPR compliance is (even though they are likely GDPR compliant already since I don't store any info). I think we're going to see a lot of small indie developers just not publish to the EU until it makes financial sense (which might be never). And that's exactly what happened here: Instapaper is a two-person team and they didn't have the time or resources to ensure compliance, so they just kept letting it slide. I suspect we'll see much more of this to come for the EU.
ksejka 8y ago
shameless plug here, if you'd like to read pocket articles on kindle go check out my free, open-source service - https://sejka.github.io/PocketToKindle/ https://sejka.github.io/PocketToKindle/

Instapaper is still not available to users in EU. It's been to months. I started to use Pocket because of this and now I don't think I'm coming back.

by zulrah 8y ago

Instapaper is still not available to users in EU. It's been to months. I started to use Pocket because of this and now I don't think I'm coming back.

bthdonohue 8y ago

Hey zulrah, we are working on GDPR and plan to have the service available in the EU as soon as possible. Hope to have you back on Instapaper when we become available in the EU again. Really sorry for the inconvenience.

TillE 8y ago
Isn't that exactly what you said a couple months ago? At this point it's pretty concerning that you still have nothing to say publicly except "we're working on it", no detail, no schedule, no nothing.
- kevingadd 8y ago
  Well, considering there are apparently only two people working on Instapaper, it's not hard to come up with reasons why it might take more than two months or why they might not be conducting a detailed PR campaign about it
  - corobo 8y ago
    Short of selling everyone's reading habits to the lowest bidder.. what on earth needs changing? Edit: To clarify I'm not saying they do that, I just can't see what part of GDPR they're having trouble with
    - oh_sigh 8y ago
      Perhaps that's because you are not a part of the corporation. Why would you expect to have insight into their operations?
      - corobo 8y ago
        I don’t expect that, I’m wondering out loud in the hopes someone may be able to shine a light on something I’ve not considered From my point of view they store a list of URLs and provide a way to nicely view the content of those URLs. What in that could be causing 2 months of downtime to fix?
  - hk__2 8y ago
    Well, considering that GDPR has been voted two years ago and is based on 20-years-old EU privacy laws, even if it took 6 months or 2 years it still wouldn’t be a valid excuse. Also, giving a bit of detail or a minimal schedule is easier than a PR campaign. It’s called transparency, and it works even if you’re alone on a project.
    - briandear 8y ago
      Except "20-years-old EU privacy laws" didn't risk 4% of global revenue. It also didn't risk activist lawsuits. https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/25/17393766/facebook-google-gdpr-lawsuit-max-schrems-europe https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/25/17393766/facebook-google-... Funny thing how DailyMotion isn't getting sued, but YouTube's parent company is.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        There's nothing funny; nobody uses or cares about DailyMotion. Also, nobody got sued, ignorant reporters notwithstanding. Schrems only filed complaints with the regulators.
      - hk__2 8y ago
        > Except "20-years-old EU privacy laws" didn't risk 4% of global revenue. It also didn't risk activist lawsuits. That’s the point. When there’s no risk, nobody cares about their users’ privacy. That’s not an excuse for shutting down now that it’s legally risky to disrespect your users.
- Kiro 8y ago
  And you have no understanding to the current situation? You know, the very reason this thread is here to begin with.
coldtea 8y ago
I don't think you can piss on customers for 2 months and then drop a "sorry for the inconvenience". And for no good reason. Just assume the improbable cost of some litigation as a company, like tens of thousands of others (including much bigger and much smaller than yours) did, put up a message to European customers and have them click and proceed as usual to the service. Or, you know, use the headstart of more than a year before the law was put into practice to get the service in order...
- bartread 8y ago
  I'm not sure why the above is getting downvoted. Sure, it's a bit salty, but if I were paying for instapaper (which I realise is cheap as chips, but the principle still stands) I don't think I'd be very impressed with being locked out for two months. Genuine question: as an EU citizen, without the use of a VPN or proxy is it still possible to at least log on to the service to cancel your account?
  - s17n 8y ago
    I never understand why people assume that services that charge money will be more responsive to users' concerns than free services. You are worth the revenue that you generate, whether that money comes from you paying or indirect means like advertising doesn't matter to the company at all.
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    Not an EU citizen, but I'd think it'd be pretty shady if they cut you off and didn't automatically suspend any subscription charges until they can properly serve you again.
    - tedmiston 8y ago
      > and didn't automatically suspend any subscription charges Instapaper is not a subscription-based service. The product is completely free on all platforms today. I think the app was a one-time purchase at launch but it has been free for many years. All of the Premium features were also made free when Premium was discontinued in 2016 shortly after the Pinterest acquisition.
tobylane 8y ago
When did you start on the GDPR-related work?
jonathankoren 8y ago
To be honest, nothing about GDPR compliance was a surprise. The law was passed in 2016. That's plenty of time get your house in order, and yet here you are over a month past due, with an oops, sorry. What gives?

mszcz 8y ago

Same here. I could understand some downtime if GPDR was suddenly sprung on them but everyone had time to prepare. I could also understand them not caring about me as a single user (not deluded here), but since I pay for the service I'm sadly all fresh out of understanding. Instapaper has been great but Pocket doesn't seem to be lacking much as far as what I need.

joering2 8y ago
Which part of GDPR is confusing to you? They did their research and turned out that in terms of profits the market is unstable if you want to open yourself up to potential GDPR litigations you are riskin more than its worth it. Don’t wait anymore. They probably not coming ever again unless GDPR is voided.
- mszcz 8y ago
  Wait, what? I didn't say GDPR was confusing to me. Also, they said they'll be compliant in some time in the future so I don't really see what you're getting at here. Hope it's just a misunderstanding ;) The thing is I don't want to be without such a service for a longer period of time so I'm sadly probably not coming back.
- dasil003 8y ago
  Oh please stop with this FUD already. Risk assessments on GDPR litigation are blown wildly out of proportion. If we approached the risk of all laws in all jurisdictions this way, we'd just wake up and commit seppuku every morning. The only services that actually need to shut down are ones that are monetizing based on personal data. Small SaaS services that aren't doing that can be fully GDPR compliant with a little bit of copy writing and self-service options for deleting/downloading personal data, and even if you don't do all that, in all likelihood, on the off chance that they actually get significant complaints about small services, regulators will give you a chance to justify your stance and make necessary remediations before throwing the book at you.
  - kjeetgill 8y ago

howitworks 8y ago

I don't mean to sound trite or dismissive, but the blame should be directed at EU legislators. If I create another software product I will explicitly and permanently make it unavailable to EU residents.

kuschku 8y ago
EU legislators gave you 20 years of discussing the law in public, 2 years between passing the law and it coming into force. That’s more than enough time.
wierd0 8y ago
A war on GDPR sounds kind of trite though.
Chilinot 8y ago
If your product can't follow the GDPR legislation then I'm glad you don't allow EU residents to use it. Since you are most likely abusing the privacy of your customers. While I'm a bit annoyed at the amount of paperwork and side systems that need to be constructed to ensure proper handling of personal data that I have had to implement, I can only see GDPR as something positive for the people.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ipqk 8y ago
  I removed all my apps from the EU, and I will no longer publish any future apps there unless they become wildly successful in another country first. My apps are tiny, free, and just not worth the hassle of figuring out what GDPR compliance is (even though they are likely GDPR compliant already since I don't store any info). I think we're going to see a lot of small indie developers just not publish to the EU until it makes financial sense (which might be never). And that's exactly what happened here: Instapaper is a two-person team and they didn't have the time or resources to ensure compliance, so they just kept letting it slide. I suspect we'll see much more of this to come for the EU.

ksejka 8y ago

shameless plug here, if you'd like to read pocket articles on kindle go check out my free, open-source service - https://sejka.github.io/PocketToKindle/ https://sejka.github.io/PocketToKindle/