But sources said it will end up paying investors, who put a reported $17 million into the company, for the right to hire some of its staff. To get started, update your Oyster app to version 2.0 through Google Play or the App Store, or visit our website to see all the new books.
– A service billed as a Netflix for books is calling it quits after failing to attract enough voracious readers willing to pay $9.95 a month for access to 1 million books. Oyster, which launched in 2013, announced in a blog post that it's going to "sunset" the service over the next few months, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company says it believes "more than ever that the phone will be the primary reading device globally over the next decade," but it feels "this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for e-books." Those new opportunities will apparently be at Google, which has hired Oyster's CEO, co-founders, and other team members for Google Play Books, reports Re/code. Sources say Google has paid off Oyster investors in what Re/code dubs an "acqhire." Where did it go wrong for Oyster? Consumers stayed away "because binge-reading is more difficult than binge-watching movies," and it didn't help that the service couldn't be accessed on Amazon's Kindle readers, writes Steven Musil at CNET. The company ended up in direct competition with Amazon after it added e-book sales to its subscription service, he notes. People seeking an all-you-can-read service still have the option of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service (which was introduced the year after Oyster made its debut) or, as this columnist notes, libraries.