paperboat versus bear
Marv's Show HN: I made paperboat.website, a platform for friends and creativity submission on Hacker News' frontpage inspired me to share it with you.
He said Bear Blog was a huge inspiration for paperboat.website and it shows. No Javascript required. No advertisements. A Roadmap page similar to Bear Blog's own Roadmap shows what features are done and upcoming. Certain Memberships features resemble those from Bear Blog too: up to 10 sites, image and audio uploads, and custom domain support. That said, paperboat.website's simple, minimal visual aesthetic might just resemble Mataroa more... I'll get to that later.
Marv's platform differs most from similar platforms with how editing and discovery work. Block-based editing allows users to choose between rich text and Markdown. As for global discovery, it isn't absent like on Mataroa nor conducted through feeds and upvotes like on Bear Blog. Rather, webrings are planned, and following others' blogs lets you access their most recent feeds.
Another significant difference is that memberships are paid for through non-recurring packages in 1, 3, 6, or 12 month increments, renewable anytime. Compare that to Mataroa's free and annual plans or Bear Blog's monthly/annual subscriptions or once-off lifetime payment. An added bonus I haven't seen elsewhere is 3 free invites included with each membership. They last the same duration as the paid membership, allowing your friends to join in on the blogging fun with extra features.
Custom color themes are also included with memberships. While that's not as flexible as Bear Blog's theming capabilities with any plan, it's something compared to Mataroa's lack thereof. Now, whether you want maximal or minimal customization is up to your preferences.
Other ways in which paperboat.website differs from platforms I'm familiar with include:
- No analytics (yet)
- Comments are on the roadmap (Mataroa supports them, unlike Bear Blog)
- No source code nor software license that I can find (hoping for a clarification soon)
Now that I've finished previewing it, what's your assessment?
P.S. I vibe with this comment of Marv's from his Hacker News submission, which responds well to longevity and ownership concerns:
Yeah, that's always the big question. You'll have to take my word for it.
I spent many years in the Re-Volt community (racing game from the 90s). This is what lead me to become a programmer, made some of my best friendships and found out how important places for communities are. I helped build the community by starting a Discord server with some friends, set up a website to organize online events, maintained a Blender plugin and documented how custom content can be made for the game, organized meetups and so on. The friends I made through the community and how close we still are today had and still have a huge impact. This time gave me so much and one of the most important things I took from that time is how important it is to maintain places where people can meet, share and learn from each other. That's a part of my thinking and whenever I start a new project, that's in the center of it.