Show HN: Readit, a read-it-later app I built because the others keep dying
A developer built Readit, a read-it-later app, out of frustration with existing services that frequently shut down. The app offers a personal reading list and was created to ensure long-term availability for saving articles.
Background
- This is a Show HN post on Hacker News, where makers present side projects or startups to the tech community for feedback.
- "Read-it-later" apps (e.g., Instapaper, Pocket, Matter, Omnivore) let users save articles, videos, or web pages to read or watch later, often with offline access and annotation tools.
- The post references a pattern: several popular read-it-later services have shut down or pivoted (e.g., Omnivore was acquired and closed in 2024; Readability was sunset in 2016), frustrating users who lose their saved libraries.
- The maker built "Readit" as a self-hosted alternative — users run their own instance instead of relying on a company that could go under, though this requires technical setup.
- The complaint "the others keep dying" resonates widely because switching costs are high: users invest time curating a reading list they cannot easily migrate.