Escape from success
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:53 am
On July 1, Google closed the Google.Reader service. The project with a seven-year history was decided to be closed down, since not as many people used it as the Internet giant would have liked. The news of the closure did not leave many indifferent, although it was believed that only true geeks read RSS feeds. A letter asking to save Google Reader was signed by 150 thousand people. The question of where to migrate from Google.Reader was more relevant than ever.
Journalists offered a couple dozen alternatives to the Google service. Among them wasThe Old Reader, a project by Ukrainian developers. It has recently become known that the creators of The Old Reader have made an unprecedented decision to close registration for new users and support the service only for those who are already on board.
Life-work balance
"When we launched the service, we worked in normal mode ," the creators explain, " after March of this year, when Google announced the closure of its RSS reader, we had to work in more difficult electrical contractors email lists conditions. We forgot what free evenings were, then - weekends ..." The decision to do something about it came when they did not sleep for 10 days in a row.
"Five months without a work-life balance. You can limit your time, do time management, but none of that will work if you're in a project that's used by hundreds of thousands of people ," the company's blog says.
The developers took the service very seriously - they could not leave error messages, bugs and user letters unanswered. The corporate blog is full of update reports. And the words of the project's authors are very lyrical, they say that they have stopped communicating with family members, cannot plan a vacation or think about anything other than The Old Reader.
Go private
No, they won't close the project completely, after all, their friends use it too. But they will try to return the service and work on it to the level it was before that ill-fated March. There will be no new registrations, but then new features will appear and the emphasis will be on quality, not quantity. "We want to make a quality service for 10,000 people, not a lousy one for 420 thousand!" the creators boldly declared.
Only those who came before the March events and those who support the project with money will be allowed under the lock and key of The Old Reader, although the service does not have a traditional subscription model.
In search of support
Most likely, the emotional letter of the creators is nothing more than slyness and a successful PR move. The sentence that they are open to cooperation and communication with those who might want to buy the project is highlighted in bold. And investors should hurry - the service will only be open for two weeks. Those who want, but actually cannot help the service, are asked not to worry and not to disturb the authors. The domain will not be sold either, just as they will not hang up "stupid" advertisements.
The developers told journalists about the need for sponsors back in the spring, the first issue of concern was with the servers, the rapidly growing number of users obliged them to increase capacities, among other things. Hosting services cost the developers several hundred euros each month, user contributions covered only half of these expenses. The authors of the project thought about what other forms for receiving contributions to implement on the site, but refused to think about registering a company to receive regular payments from users. "This is ridiculous!" they wrote in the blog.
Journalists offered a couple dozen alternatives to the Google service. Among them wasThe Old Reader, a project by Ukrainian developers. It has recently become known that the creators of The Old Reader have made an unprecedented decision to close registration for new users and support the service only for those who are already on board.
Life-work balance
"When we launched the service, we worked in normal mode ," the creators explain, " after March of this year, when Google announced the closure of its RSS reader, we had to work in more difficult electrical contractors email lists conditions. We forgot what free evenings were, then - weekends ..." The decision to do something about it came when they did not sleep for 10 days in a row.
"Five months without a work-life balance. You can limit your time, do time management, but none of that will work if you're in a project that's used by hundreds of thousands of people ," the company's blog says.
The developers took the service very seriously - they could not leave error messages, bugs and user letters unanswered. The corporate blog is full of update reports. And the words of the project's authors are very lyrical, they say that they have stopped communicating with family members, cannot plan a vacation or think about anything other than The Old Reader.
Go private
No, they won't close the project completely, after all, their friends use it too. But they will try to return the service and work on it to the level it was before that ill-fated March. There will be no new registrations, but then new features will appear and the emphasis will be on quality, not quantity. "We want to make a quality service for 10,000 people, not a lousy one for 420 thousand!" the creators boldly declared.
Only those who came before the March events and those who support the project with money will be allowed under the lock and key of The Old Reader, although the service does not have a traditional subscription model.
In search of support
Most likely, the emotional letter of the creators is nothing more than slyness and a successful PR move. The sentence that they are open to cooperation and communication with those who might want to buy the project is highlighted in bold. And investors should hurry - the service will only be open for two weeks. Those who want, but actually cannot help the service, are asked not to worry and not to disturb the authors. The domain will not be sold either, just as they will not hang up "stupid" advertisements.
The developers told journalists about the need for sponsors back in the spring, the first issue of concern was with the servers, the rapidly growing number of users obliged them to increase capacities, among other things. Hosting services cost the developers several hundred euros each month, user contributions covered only half of these expenses. The authors of the project thought about what other forms for receiving contributions to implement on the site, but refused to think about registering a company to receive regular payments from users. "This is ridiculous!" they wrote in the blog.