2 minute read

Why can’t we just have nice things? My favourite Read-it-later app, Omnivore, was just bought by an AI text-to-speech company and dissolved within 20 days.

Omnivore was a great little app that allowed you to:

  • subscribe to RSS feeds
  • subscribe to newsletters with a dummy email
  • clip notes from a browser
  • highlight articles and do a full text search
  • save articles to read offline
  • sync with Obsidian to make referencing articles a breeze - rather than my old method of Zotero, which is only really suited for academic research

Omnivore alternatives

As I wrote in a previous article, I like to curate my own news feed by subscribing to personal blogs via RSS feeds and newsletters. So, like many others I was forced to find a new app. Feedly, Feedbin and Inoreader were the ones that jumped out to me from Reddit posts. People all discussed these as cheaper alternatives to Readwise, but they all required some subscription to get the same set of features omnivore provided for free. So, if I am going to pay for something, why not get the best?

Omnivore was the gateway drug into this world of read-it later apps and RSS feeds. Readwise, and Reader, is the full experience. I’ve only used it for a week so far, but I am already hooked. It can do everything Omnivore promised above, with these added extras:

  • Ability to highlight/search Youtube transcripts
  • Suggestions for new articles from other Readwise readers, such as this amazing DIY reference
  • Seamless browser extension to create highlights without leaving the page
  • Seamless integration with Readwise so I can actually remember all the advice I read in blogs
  • Built with keyboard shortcuts everywhere, making it very easy to sort through the noise
  • Inbox/Later/Archive workflow that makes it easy to filter through the noise

They also played a complete blinder by releasing an Omnivore importer a few days after the announcement, which has eased my sense of loss as I can now keep all my highlights from the past year.

Justifying the Readwise cost

Readwise is clearly not worth it for everyone, but for my own sanity I wanted to outline why I am willing to pay the price.

I want to think more and scroll less. This requires reading more long form and curated content from across the internet and within non-fiction books. Now, I could create my own slightly hacky version of an RSS reader/web-clilpper with Obsidian, matcha and some form of syncing. This would no doubt work and keep me satisfied for a few weeks, but I am up against YT shorts and Reddit in the war for my attention so I need the solution to be slick and rewarding, and for this, I am willing to pay.

Readwise also solves another problem of knowledge retention. I have created over 2500 highlights in the last year and have had the unsettling feeling that I was remembering none of it. While I could go back through my kindle highlights myself, I never do. I had even started writing musings/quotes in a physical notebook before I had this Readwise revelation. But I really need something to occupy me before I open the Reddit time sink and having my knowledge re-surfaced each day is genuinely game changing for me.

So, I now feel secure in investing more time towards reading, and for me, that is worth it.

Oh and now I get to be that guy who sends quotes like this

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