Well, it was. It bootstrapped its userbase with college students, creating an air of exclusivity and giving highschoolers something to look forward to. The prof

Well, it was. It bootstrapped its userbase with college students, creating an air of exclusivity and giving highschoolers something to look forward to. The profiles were clean-cut and professional, as opposed to the garishly styled HTML themes and autoplaying music on Myspace. Once they opened up to everyone, they captured an entire generation. And once they introduced Chat, they basically killed every other IM service [1]. At this point, it was game over for everyone else. Meanwhile, Medium is another Tumblr, or another Blogger, or another LiveJournal, but the visual design attracts thought-piece bloggers instead of personal ones. This is a self-selecting but heterogeneous group, so there's no strong network effects. How do they grow beyond this, or adapt to monetize their existing userbase? What makes them think they won't just jump to the next free blog host? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11114518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11114518