I'm 35 and couldn't finish reading articles anymore, so I built this
Hey HN, the full story is on the page, but here's the TL;DR: I'm 35 and somewhere along the way I lost the ability to finish reading articles. I'd open them, read 2-3 paragraphs, get distracted, and close the tab feeling like a failure. My "Read Later" list became a graveyard of 2,000+ unread articles. I tried everything – focus apps, reader modes, blocking extensions. Nothing worked. Then I realized. 'maybe the problem isn't me'. Modern web articles are designed for engagement metrics, not comprehension. Sidebars, popups, related articles, comment sections – everything is optimized to pull…
I'm 35 and couldn't finish reading articles anymore, so I built this launched on January 6, 2026 with 9 votes, #1,189 of 14,584 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
What it does
I need to confess something embarrassing. I can't finish reading articles anymore. I don't mean I choose not to. I mean I physically cannot. My brain won't let me. It wasn't always like this. In my twenties, I was the guy who read everything. Long investigative pieces, academic papers, entire book chapters in one sitting. Reading was my identity. I was proud of it. I remember the exact moment I realized how bad it had gotten. I was at a dinner party at Christmas. Someone brought up an article about AI that had been making the rounds – you know the type, one of those big think pieces everyone was talking about. The whole table had opinions. They quoted specific paragraphs. They debated the…from parsely.obasic.app
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN, the full story is on the page, but here's the TL;DR: I'm 35 and somewhere along the way I lost the ability to finish reading articles. I'd open them, read 2-3 paragraphs, get distracted, and close the tab feeling like a failure. My "Read Later" list became a graveyard of 2,000+ unread articles. I tried…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →
Just The Article PleaseFeb 2026 · justthearticleplease.com · ▲127A simple article reader for the web
A better way to read blogs2023 · boredreading.com · ▲103Hey HN, maker here. It was a serious 4-6 months of effort to build this. I have never poured as much love, attention and detail into a project before. So I really appreciate you having a looksie! The homepage has a fresh list of articles every hour and is open to all. Still, I recommend signing up so you can add stuff to your reading list and follow blogs. My initial plan was to monetize this with subtle ads, but that didn't work out as the traffic to the site isn't nearly enough for that. That said, I have a fair bit invested in this and I need your help figuring out a way to make this…
- BMBecause most of us suffer from AD(H)D, here is too-long-didnt-read.com2011 · too-long-didnt-read.com · ▲7
Hey HN crowd! Two days ago I realized I'm almost unable to read a book or a long article without getting distracted by Twitter/HN/Reddit/Work. The situation is so terrible, I'm even getting afraid of big articles, and my ReadItLater list is getting pretty long (shameful I know) ... and I'm pretty sure most of you are in this situation :) Being used to TL;DRs on long reddit posts, I thought it would be great to have these for everything, so I quickly hacked this website: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ Here is an example of TL;DR: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy I would love to…
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