5 ms·

I'm guessing I read several Medium articles a month. Some of them are really well produced - Transit's engineering post on beautifying their maps, Remix's post

by epberry 10y ago

I'm guessing I read several Medium articles a month. Some of them are really well produced - Transit's engineering post on beautifying their maps, Remix's post about public transportation planning and ILP, and Karpathy's post on backprop come to mind. So I hope Medium sticks around because I get a lot of value out of them. Would I pay for this value? I think I actually would, but maybe only for stories I finish and think are good. For example I would pay a lot for the stories above but I would almost rather Medium pay me for posts which turn out to be thinly veiled marketing that I stop reading halfway through (I realize Transit's and Remix's posts could be construed as such but hey, the technical content was deep). I suppose a flat fee is better for the business but I could be more convinced to plunk down the credit card at the beginning if I was charged based on usage, like time spent reading on the site. Also, let me just take a moment to once again rage against Business Insider for writing a pretty bad article. The whole thing seemed purposefully antagonistic and full of sarcastic language. Maybe it's because BI is the exact type of operation Medium is trying to kill, but I think those MAU numbers actually warrant some optimism! To be fair, Medium probably should have provided some people to counterbalance all those angry publishers...

madebysquares 10y ago
If they did turn into a subscription model... what would you be willing to pay per month? 7.99-9.99,maybe 19.99?
- douche 10y ago
  Medium has to compete with the rest of the blogging ecosystem, where many of their articles are actually cross-posted from personal blogs. The rest of that entire world, content is free or donation-driven, so the value of a Medium post is effectively nil. Arguably negative, for the feel-good garbage and corporate submarine PR.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Seriously? No. Maybe about the price of a print magazine, though.
  - criddell 10y ago
    Have you ever paid for a print magazine that doesn't have ads? They are usually at least $10. For some reason, I've started receiving a few magazines at my house that I never asked for: Popular Science, Wired, and Cosmopolitan. They show up for six months, then stop coming. A year later they start again.
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    Buying a "New Yorker" magazine on a news stand cost me upwards of $8 So even print is not that cheap it seems
tnecniv 10y ago
Do you have a link to the ILP one?
- bunelr 10y ago
  I imagine it is that one: https://blog.remix.com/an-intro-to-integer-programming-for-engineers-simplified-bus-scheduling-bd3d64895e92#.yb0h7vrmb https://blog.remix.com/an-intro-to-integer-programming-for-e...
noobermin 10y ago
Actually, the substance of the article wasn't that bad, but after looking again at the browser title, I realized the title didn't square with the article at all, as usual. Also, I think I would pay for the site, definitely, as long as it still somewhat pays publishers who contribute freely to the site in some cases.
Baeocystin 10y ago
Have you heard of https://blendle.com/ https://blendle.com/ ? They brand themselves as 'Spotify for journalism', with a pay-per-article approach, with an instant refund if you don't like the article. I only started using them a couple of days ago, so I don't have any further useful comment, but it seems like a promising approach.
- Bombthecat 10y ago
  If they would be Spotify for journalism wouldn't they have a flat fee?
  - Baeocystin 10y ago
    I think it is an analogy (pick whatever you want from whichever supplier you want, without having to sub to them individually) more than an exact duplication.
    - lesiki 10y ago
      Well, the point of the analogy was to illustrate the business model. I think there's room for a spotify model in writing. As a consumer, instead of a centralised platform, I'd like it to be an integration on the various websites I get content from. I.e. the normal internet with it's various publishing engines, but paywall automatically bypased, ads automatically disabled and producer automatically credited & paid because I'm signed in to my 'servicename' account.
- dsplittgerber 10y ago
  Blendle is a solution to a very different problem. Blendle provides unbundling for popular magazines and newspapers, i.e. you can selectively read single articles for < 1€ rather than having to buy a full issue of the paper in question. It's really well done, but basically does what the iTunes store did for MP3s. What Medium faces is a rather different beast: Trying to reach the holy grail of finding non-advertising funding for journalism (ideally, without a subscription-based model).
gutigen 10y ago
Medium should team up with https://brave.com https://brave.com, would propably we most effortless option to get some revenue.

by epberry 10y ago

madebysquares 10y ago

If they did turn into a subscription model... what would you be willing to pay per month? 7.99-9.99,maybe 19.99?

douche 10y ago
Medium has to compete with the rest of the blogging ecosystem, where many of their articles are actually cross-posted from personal blogs. The rest of that entire world, content is free or donation-driven, so the value of a Medium post is effectively nil. Arguably negative, for the feel-good garbage and corporate submarine PR.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Seriously? No. Maybe about the price of a print magazine, though.
- criddell 10y ago
  Have you ever paid for a print magazine that doesn't have ads? They are usually at least $10. For some reason, I've started receiving a few magazines at my house that I never asked for: Popular Science, Wired, and Cosmopolitan. They show up for six months, then stop coming. A year later they start again.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Buying a "New Yorker" magazine on a news stand cost me upwards of $8 So even print is not that cheap it seems

tnecniv 10y ago

Do you have a link to the ILP one?

bunelr 10y ago
I imagine it is that one: https://blog.remix.com/an-intro-to-integer-programming-for-engineers-simplified-bus-scheduling-bd3d64895e92#.yb0h7vrmb https://blog.remix.com/an-intro-to-integer-programming-for-e...

noobermin 10y ago

Actually, the substance of the article wasn't that bad, but after looking again at the browser title, I realized the title didn't square with the article at all, as usual. Also, I think I would pay for the site, definitely, as long as it still somewhat pays publishers who contribute freely to the site in some cases.

Baeocystin 10y ago

Have you heard of https://blendle.com/ https://blendle.com/ ? They brand themselves as 'Spotify for journalism', with a pay-per-article approach, with an instant refund if you don't like the article. I only started using them a couple of days ago, so I don't have any further useful comment, but it seems like a promising approach.

Bombthecat 10y ago
If they would be Spotify for journalism wouldn't they have a flat fee?
- Baeocystin 10y ago
  I think it is an analogy (pick whatever you want from whichever supplier you want, without having to sub to them individually) more than an exact duplication.
  - lesiki 10y ago
    Well, the point of the analogy was to illustrate the business model. I think there's room for a spotify model in writing. As a consumer, instead of a centralised platform, I'd like it to be an integration on the various websites I get content from. I.e. the normal internet with it's various publishing engines, but paywall automatically bypased, ads automatically disabled and producer automatically credited & paid because I'm signed in to my 'servicename' account.
dsplittgerber 10y ago
Blendle is a solution to a very different problem. Blendle provides unbundling for popular magazines and newspapers, i.e. you can selectively read single articles for < 1€ rather than having to buy a full issue of the paper in question. It's really well done, but basically does what the iTunes store did for MP3s. What Medium faces is a rather different beast: Trying to reach the holy grail of finding non-advertising funding for journalism (ideally, without a subscription-based model).

gutigen 10y ago

Medium should team up with https://brave.com https://brave.com, would propably we most effortless option to get some revenue.