Feedly is Now Hijacking Shared Links And Cutting Out Original Publishers

Nate Hoffelder had an astonishing surprise yesterday:

I have just discovered that Feedly has rolled out an unannounced update that changes how users share links.

Instead of sharing a link which leads to a publisher’s website, Feedly users are now sharing links that lead to the same content, only now it is hosted on Feedly’s website.

The response from Feedly about this experimental feature is even more jaw-dropping:

This is a tool we are building to help publishers increase the engaged readership in feedly. This also helps mobile users consume content a lot faster. This is still experimental but I will be happy to completely opt you out.

I don’t display ads, therefore page hits don’t affect me as much as it do to writers I follow that turned their blogs into their full-time gigs. Altogether, I think this is abusive, as Nate points out:

I really have to wonder about Feedly; it’s almost as if they don’t realize that publishers want to engage with readers directly and not have Feedly engage with readers at our expense.

It’s not like they would be sending me a check anytime soon, is it?