Read Later is a Scam
I think I have an account in every popular read-later service. I’ve tried them all—Instapaper, Pocket, Matter, what not?
With every one of them, the story was the same. I signed up, tempted by the premise of creating a curated list of articles I wanted to read. I was preparing for the precious moment when I would sit on my couch, relaxed and mindful, ready to read and absorb knowledge.
In reality, one of two things happened:
- I would open the app a few weeks later, looking for something to read, only to find old articles that I didn't remember why I saved or whether they were worth my time.
- I would never open the app! I would just keep sending links to the app, "saving" them for a better time.
So for me, read-later services are a scam. Their only purpose is to silence my conscience that I’m not reading this super-interesting article now. "I will read it someday, for sure," I tell myself. "Let’s just save it here, and I will get to it in no time." I feel good! I will have so many good articles to read when I have time!
I don’t think anyone working on read-later services has bad intentions, and I believe that read-later does work for some people, but not for me.
As soon as I understood this, I started to read much more. Instead of running into articles at random times of the day, I curated an RSS feed that I open only when I’m relaxed and have time. I will admit that I still make the mistake of sending links to the Safari Reading List occasionally, but I understand that this most likely means I will not read them at all.
For me, there is no such thing as read later, only read now.