6 ms·

It's a blogging platform. Why posts hosted there should be any less interesting than posts hosted on any other platform?

snackai 10y ago
For some odd reason medium attracts the worst content. All those super optimistic shallow nonsense. Urgh.
- good_vibes 10y ago
  Why do you think that is? Is it something about our times, people in general, or having nothing better to say?
  - sverige 10y ago
    There's an entire subculture of fake "you can do anything" motivational stuff on the web. The purveyors are direct descendants of Tony Robbins and Dale Carnegie and whoever was selling that stuff before him.
  - hdra 10y ago
    I don't think thats necessarily true, but I also think that Medium has that kind of connotation for me. I think the lack of branding on Medium sites has something to do with it. People ended up lumping everything as "Medium articles", from spammy "growth-hacking" articles to well-researched, well written investigative article.
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  > some odd reason Let me place my bet: Professional look (design, typography) + Medium brand + very little effort to publish + chance to get featured if it attracts clicks.
- bachmeier 10y ago
  Yep. Although I've read a few good posts on Medium, most of the content feels like something you'd find in popular business books. The design of the site seems to discourage anything with a technical/academic/deep thinking side. I've been wanting to post there, but I don't have anything to say that would be a good fit.
- artursapek 10y ago
  It lets a lot of pretentious, self-absorbed people pretend they're being published in some high end magazine.
hdra 10y ago
While I don't feel as strongly about Medium as the parent comment, I'm also less inclined to read an article when it is posted on Medium. No real reason, really, just a personal bias from myself because I'm finding a lot of "thought-leader-pieces" articles over there, and technical content over there are not as well formatted as the ones on someone's personal blog that are well designed for code snippets and such in the article. I still read Medium articles when I came across articles written by people whose work I'm somewhat familiar with though.
- sverige 10y ago
  > it has become the go-to site for tech musings written by unpaid people who can't be bothered to set up their own blogs. This is it for me. If you want to write about tech, or the tech scene, and especially web tech, why can't you just build a site? I've built a few and I don't even do web development for a living so I had to teach myself some stuff.
  - user5994461 10y ago
    Because it is difficult, a lot of work and potentially very expensive (when you have traffic) to build your own. If you are in tech, you should understand to use the right tool for the job.
    - z3t4 10y ago
      you could easy have a web server with thousands of visitors running on a rasbery pi. i would say a week end project to set it up or one hour if you already are familiar with web servers.
      - user5994461 10y ago
        Your raspbeery will be crushed to death when the article will go on the first page of HN. You seriously overestimate the capabilities of a raspberry and undestimate the traffic you get.
detaro 10y ago
> Why posts hosted there should be any less interesting than posts hosted on any other platform? Platforms have communities that post about certain things, and less about others, and develop a reputation for doing so (and the average quality). If you post on one, your links share the reputation readers attach to it as a baseline, since readers expect it to fit in the pattern of other content they have seen on there. Interestingly, for me Medium offering custom domains doesn't really impact this, since "people bothering to set up their own domain name" seems to be a group that's less bad in general (and exceptions get mentally tagged as such).

snackai 10y ago

For some odd reason medium attracts the worst content. All those super optimistic shallow nonsense. Urgh.

good_vibes 10y ago
Why do you think that is? Is it something about our times, people in general, or having nothing better to say?
- sverige 10y ago
  There's an entire subculture of fake "you can do anything" motivational stuff on the web. The purveyors are direct descendants of Tony Robbins and Dale Carnegie and whoever was selling that stuff before him.
- hdra 10y ago
  I don't think thats necessarily true, but I also think that Medium has that kind of connotation for me. I think the lack of branding on Medium sites has something to do with it. People ended up lumping everything as "Medium articles", from spammy "growth-hacking" articles to well-researched, well written investigative article.
kowdermeister 10y ago
> some odd reason Let me place my bet: Professional look (design, typography) + Medium brand + very little effort to publish + chance to get featured if it attracts clicks.
bachmeier 10y ago
Yep. Although I've read a few good posts on Medium, most of the content feels like something you'd find in popular business books. The design of the site seems to discourage anything with a technical/academic/deep thinking side. I've been wanting to post there, but I don't have anything to say that would be a good fit.
artursapek 10y ago
It lets a lot of pretentious, self-absorbed people pretend they're being published in some high end magazine.

hdra 10y ago

While I don't feel as strongly about Medium as the parent comment, I'm also less inclined to read an article when it is posted on Medium. No real reason, really, just a personal bias from myself because I'm finding a lot of "thought-leader-pieces" articles over there, and technical content over there are not as well formatted as the ones on someone's personal blog that are well designed for code snippets and such in the article. I still read Medium articles when I came across articles written by people whose work I'm somewhat familiar with though.

sverige 10y ago
> it has become the go-to site for tech musings written by unpaid people who can't be bothered to set up their own blogs. This is it for me. If you want to write about tech, or the tech scene, and especially web tech, why can't you just build a site? I've built a few and I don't even do web development for a living so I had to teach myself some stuff.
- user5994461 10y ago
  Because it is difficult, a lot of work and potentially very expensive (when you have traffic) to build your own. If you are in tech, you should understand to use the right tool for the job.
  - z3t4 10y ago
    you could easy have a web server with thousands of visitors running on a rasbery pi. i would say a week end project to set it up or one hour if you already are familiar with web servers.
    - user5994461 10y ago
      Your raspbeery will be crushed to death when the article will go on the first page of HN. You seriously overestimate the capabilities of a raspberry and undestimate the traffic you get.

detaro 10y ago

> Why posts hosted there should be any less interesting than posts hosted on any other platform? Platforms have communities that post about certain things, and less about others, and develop a reputation for doing so (and the average quality). If you post on one, your links share the reputation readers attach to it as a baseline, since readers expect it to fit in the pattern of other content they have seen on there. Interestingly, for me Medium offering custom domains doesn't really impact this, since "people bothering to set up their own domain name" seems to be a group that's less bad in general (and exceptions get mentally tagged as such).