On creating Peakub

Reading matters, reading purposefully even more in the age of constant AI slop and interrupted attention. Albeit giving publishers the best platform possible is a noble quest, Peakub did not start with the intention to create another reading platform, it was rather built for visual content solely, then, as for most of the products that follow the relentless path to market-fit, it has slowly mutated into what it is offering now: a social publishing platform aimed at delivering while curating writers and creators at large's best work.

The internet is allegedly dying...

Newsletters have never been so widespread, offering what the dying worldwide web ceded for profitability: focus. Upon reflection one of the unsung attractions of the email client is its simplicity, a static webpage on a stripped down web browser that makes it impossible to display the ever recurring awful artefact of the web, namely the pop up in all its embodiments and glory; there you have the triumph of minimalism over features, and when applied to newsletters that of substance over marketing. But offering a newsletter machine is not a killer app, not in 2025, neither is offering a platform that intermingles content distribution and social interactions. Then what is there to offer more?

The state of the cultural discourse

The long, painful and televised fall of traditional media is both a precursor and an aftermath of the so called distrust for a historically narrow pool of newsrooms and gatekeepers. What the viewer gained in perceived authenticity via direct to consumer formats like podcasts or short videos, it lost in assurance in vetoed, filtered and adjusted information by the work of intermediaries newsroom were full of, and middle management answering to CEOs who knew they were a few alineas away from getting a higher up call about the "skewed orientation the newspaper has been taking lately". But calling the new media landscape lacking and the ancient medium trustworthy is a bit cunning, way more people have access to more information than they did in 20 years in a day, and engage in political conversations and even so called culture wars across social media. Then what has really changed? It all boils down to attention both in its sustenance and quality.

Chrome (or lack thereof) matters

The medium dictates the expectation, the decorum tells the reader what to expect in tenure and reach, and most importantly in limits. Affordances, the design term for invitations for action, when numerous and despairingly fighting for your fovea take their toll on the cognition you actually spend on valuable content. When content is valuable it should not compete with the chrome. We've spent numerous iterations on simplifying the interface to promote content real estate and reduce attention interrupting artefacts. We hope the result conveys a consistent sense of trust among readers and creators.