Why Read It Later/Pocket Went Free

April 17th, 2012

Nate Weiner explains why Pocket, the new version of Read It Later, is now free:

By being a paid app, Read It Later was charging like the fast food case, even though the value of our product maps much closer to the second and third graphs. Put simply: From a business perspective, having a user pay $2.99 up-front once and then use the app for 4 years just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

After this realization about our previous revenue strategy we knew we had to change it. We’re moving towards a new model that better fits our business and our users. In the end this will allow us to provide a better service to all of our customers.

He argues their plan is not to get acquired, and going free is a step toward their plan for making money. The argument makes sense, so I’m curious what the plan is.

Pocket looks great, too.