So this new online software as a service website, leaflet.pub, has sprung up, and is causing a bit of a stir on Bluesky. I thought I'd take a look, and take it for a test run. This is the test run.

Leaflet.pub is free. There is no advertising on the site. In fact, you don't even need to open an account before you can produce documents (leaflets). We have come to expect free services from the likes of Google and Facebook, but understand there is a dark underbelly to the operations of these behemoths – tracking and profiling. They sell the user to their customer base: advertisers, government authorities, etc. It took us a while to discover this potentially antisocial disadvantage, but by then we were hooked.

So excuse me if I am more than a little suspicious of leaflet.pub. Developers cost the price of their wages. Server space costs money, too – all the more with increased adoptation of the service. With no advertising on the platform, and apparently no other means of bringing in the bucks, how is leaflet.pub a viable concern?

Or is the plan to attract venture capital to support the continuation of the service? (And we all know how that goes, eh, Flickr?)

A presentation of and discussion of leaflet on ycombinator.