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Medium is one example of something that went from “nice” to “annoying” very quickly. (LinkedIn and Meetup are other examples.) Then it gets “improved” and cus

Medium is one example of something that went from “nice” to “annoying” very quickly. (LinkedIn and Meetup are other examples.) Then it gets “improved” and customers just want to leave. I don’t know who these people are that just can’t help themselves, stomping all over something that was nice the way it was. And it means we need to desperately revisit open platforms, since you should always have the option of forking from the pre-shark-jumping point.

dceddia 9y ago
I sometimes wonder about this in the larger context of companies as a whole. If a company has one product, and that product is released and "done", then from a purely logical standpoint, why do they still need to retain employees (other than Support probably)? There are plenty of reasons to keep people on of course, but at some level it's kind of a "default" thing to do.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Because if they lay people off it's bad press, and if they say they're in maintenance mode people will think the company is failing and both of those things aren't great for user adoption. You grow until you fail, and then another competitor takes over. That's what disruption means.
  - dceddia 9y ago
    Yep, that's how it works, and that's "by default." Not saying that's wrong, it's just interesting. It's not just for "disruptive" companies either.
- untangle 9y ago
  If the company is venture funded, growth is the imperative. VCs aren't looking for margins, they are looking for massive growth that leads to big multiples. Hence the imperative to lean into the wind.
- icebraining 9y ago
  It's not that uncommon to sell the product (with or without the company title) and fire the employees when they reach that point.
RickS 9y ago
The adage “You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain” feels especially true in software. It's been intriguing but disappointing watching Medium transition from a site that cared a lot about enhancing the readability of the average blog, to a site that cared a lot about forcing sticky engagement. I understand why they did it ($$$), but I long for the days when there were no popups, no fixed bottom bars saying "download the app" etc. It's easy to take medium's appearance for granted now, but when they launched, their implementation was game changing. Much of the improvement in blog readability, especially in the SaaS space, feels like it can be attributed to learning from and emulating the (longstanding) typographical principles Medium put forward.
freehunter 9y ago
If there's any site that has absolutely no need to nag me to log in before reading, it's Medium. Yet every time I visit, they pop up and say "You've read XX articles, time to make this official". Why? Why? What benefit do I get from signing in unless I'm writing a blog? It's annoying when Quora does it, but at least Quora is a question and answers site. It's designed for a back and forth and user interaction. Stack Exchange proves you don't need to make people log in for that, but whatever. Quora does it. But Medium is not a chat site. It's not a forum. It's not Q&A. It's a blog site. I'm not writing a blog, I'm just trying to read. Stop asking me to make an account.
- silverbax88 9y ago
  The issue with Quora, on the other hand, is they want access to one of your accounts - like Gmail - in order to log you in. Nope.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    They have big colorful [Continue with Gmail] and [Continue with Facebook] buttons, but there's a link below that to create an account via any email address.
- clintonb 9y ago
  > Why? What benefit do I get from signing in unless I'm writing a blog? Recommendations. If you create an account, Medium sends daily/weekly articles based on your preferences.
  - josho 9y ago
    Yes. I didn’t appreciate that email spam. It took me several weeks to figure out how to get out of their digest emails without missing out on the one blog that I cared about.
- notatoad 9y ago
  The worst thing is that their sign-in cookies expire with a higher frequency than their tracking of how many articles you've read. I keep signing in to my medium account, which I created because they kept bugging me to, only to be prompted to create an account again next time I make the mistake of visiting their stupid site.
guelo 9y ago
Those people are CEOs trying to figure out how to become profitable by providing a free service.
jvictor118 9y ago
While I agree Medium is going through some growing pains trying to figure out a business model, I'm a bit surprised _nobody_ on this forum is coming to their defense. I personally enjoy Medium. I don't misattribute content to Medium itself. In fact, one of the things I like most about it is that I can easily find new people to "follow" (in general and their writing). I also do post on Medium. One of the things I like most there is that comments are "first-class" posts on Medium. This is truly novel. It makes a bunch of blog posts into an interwoven globalized conversation. Certainly, that can't be done with a static site generator. I'll certainly begin publishing to my own domain and importing rel canonical-style from now on, since there are many good points made here. But I tend to think that, while Blogger and GeoCities were simply brokers of content, Medium does quite a bit more.

dceddia 9y ago

I sometimes wonder about this in the larger context of companies as a whole. If a company has one product, and that product is released and "done", then from a purely logical standpoint, why do they still need to retain employees (other than Support probably)? There are plenty of reasons to keep people on of course, but at some level it's kind of a "default" thing to do.

freehunter 9y ago
Because if they lay people off it's bad press, and if they say they're in maintenance mode people will think the company is failing and both of those things aren't great for user adoption. You grow until you fail, and then another competitor takes over. That's what disruption means.
- dceddia 9y ago
  Yep, that's how it works, and that's "by default." Not saying that's wrong, it's just interesting. It's not just for "disruptive" companies either.
untangle 9y ago
If the company is venture funded, growth is the imperative. VCs aren't looking for margins, they are looking for massive growth that leads to big multiples. Hence the imperative to lean into the wind.
icebraining 9y ago
It's not that uncommon to sell the product (with or without the company title) and fire the employees when they reach that point.

RickS 9y ago

The adage “You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain” feels especially true in software. It's been intriguing but disappointing watching Medium transition from a site that cared a lot about enhancing the readability of the average blog, to a site that cared a lot about forcing sticky engagement. I understand why they did it ($$$), but I long for the days when there were no popups, no fixed bottom bars saying "download the app" etc. It's easy to take medium's appearance for granted now, but when they launched, their implementation was game changing. Much of the improvement in blog readability, especially in the SaaS space, feels like it can be attributed to learning from and emulating the (longstanding) typographical principles Medium put forward.

freehunter 9y ago

If there's any site that has absolutely no need to nag me to log in before reading, it's Medium. Yet every time I visit, they pop up and say "You've read XX articles, time to make this official". Why? Why? What benefit do I get from signing in unless I'm writing a blog? It's annoying when Quora does it, but at least Quora is a question and answers site. It's designed for a back and forth and user interaction. Stack Exchange proves you don't need to make people log in for that, but whatever. Quora does it. But Medium is not a chat site. It's not a forum. It's not Q&A. It's a blog site. I'm not writing a blog, I'm just trying to read. Stop asking me to make an account.

silverbax88 9y ago
The issue with Quora, on the other hand, is they want access to one of your accounts - like Gmail - in order to log you in. Nope.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  They have big colorful [Continue with Gmail] and [Continue with Facebook] buttons, but there's a link below that to create an account via any email address.
clintonb 9y ago
> Why? What benefit do I get from signing in unless I'm writing a blog? Recommendations. If you create an account, Medium sends daily/weekly articles based on your preferences.
- josho 9y ago
  Yes. I didn’t appreciate that email spam. It took me several weeks to figure out how to get out of their digest emails without missing out on the one blog that I cared about.
notatoad 9y ago
The worst thing is that their sign-in cookies expire with a higher frequency than their tracking of how many articles you've read. I keep signing in to my medium account, which I created because they kept bugging me to, only to be prompted to create an account again next time I make the mistake of visiting their stupid site.

guelo 9y ago

Those people are CEOs trying to figure out how to become profitable by providing a free service.

jvictor118 9y ago

While I agree Medium is going through some growing pains trying to figure out a business model, I'm a bit surprised _nobody_ on this forum is coming to their defense. I personally enjoy Medium. I don't misattribute content to Medium itself. In fact, one of the things I like most about it is that I can easily find new people to "follow" (in general and their writing). I also do post on Medium. One of the things I like most there is that comments are "first-class" posts on Medium. This is truly novel. It makes a bunch of blog posts into an interwoven globalized conversation. Certainly, that can't be done with a static site generator. I'll certainly begin publishing to my own domain and importing rel canonical-style from now on, since there are many good points made here. But I tend to think that, while Blogger and GeoCities were simply brokers of content, Medium does quite a bit more.