I get that, but isn't it better than paying for a utility like Pocket or Instapaper that strips ads from writers' articles and doesn't offer them any compensation? Those companies aren't asking writers to opt-in to that. We're trying to do the right thing in a financially sustainable way.
Also just to be clear, writers won't be required to sign up for a paid Readup subscription in order to collect their revenue share. If they don't want to use the platform they can just verify with us via email.
> Do you make it clear when something I read is from a creator who has signed up and therefore will be paid?
Yes! There will absolutely be some sort of "blue checkmark" verification indicator. (To be clear we have not yet started charging users. We're still in the building stage!)
> If one of your users were to read something I published, would they see it exactly as they would if they visited directly? Same ads, same layout? Will the reader look any different to me as far as my analytics go?
On the browser: Initially yes, before activating the extension which will strip ads and enter the "reader mode" layout.
On mobile: No, javascript and stylesheets are not executed while rendering the article.
For your analytics: It depends. If you're looking at server logs then everything will look the same. If you're relying on client-side javascript for analytics then you don't see it at all for our mobile users and the results might be different for browser users depending on how your scripts are interacting with the page.
> Also, how do you manage abiding by all the crazy terms and conditions on different sites? For example, on your homepage is a link to an Atlantic article and their terms and conditions prohibit the use of their RSS feed for commercial reasons or selling access to their site. Do you have a deal with the Atlantic? Have they signed up with you?
We don't crawl any publisher websites or use their RSS feeds. All article curation on our site is crowdsourced from our users - 100% organic human spidering. We just track their reading progress and use that data to rank the articles so that everyone can find the best content. We'd love to eventually partner with publishers but especially larger ones probably won't want to talk to us until we have millions of paying users and can offer them a significant revenue share.
