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I also loved that era of blogs, but unless the distribution problem is solved, we're probably never going back. Self-hosted personal blogs end up mostly being

I also loved that era of blogs, but unless the distribution problem is solved, we're probably never going back. Self-hosted personal blogs end up mostly being ghost towns these days unless you get somewhat famous. Medium on the other hand gets your foot in the door and draws your niche crowd and conversations for you with much less effort.

amelius 8y ago
> but unless the distribution problem is solved Not sure what you mean. The distribution problem is solved by the internet. Discoverability (probably what you meant) is solved redundantly by Medium, since it is already solved by Google, and by social news websites such as HN and Reddit, etc. Medium = YouTube for textual content. The only way we "need" it is if we want a feed of algorithmically chosen content based on previous/popular preferences, but that obviously comes with a bunch of problems of its own.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Unfortunate that the Internet community (writers and readers) are sacrificing so much to the false god of “discoverability.” For a few glorious years, self-hosted decentralized blogs, services and games were a thing. Now everyone is off re-implementing everything that sucked about centralized broadcast media.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Because they recognized that there was some value in the centralization, namely that it makes it far easier for users to find content. Putting your own blog out there into the ether is far, far, far more difficult to drive users to it. And then, if you want to have comments, now you have to invest time and effort into moderation and anti-spam, whereas here Medium takes care of most of that.
- endless1234 8y ago
  >Medium = YouTube for textual content. The only way we "need" it is if we want a feed of algorithmically chosen content based on previous/popular preference Are you saying this is a bad thing in and of itself? Ok, sometimes I binge on videos needlessly, but to say the distribution/discoverability is already solved by the internet and Google is probably not how most people see it. Being recommended new content to consume based on previous preferences is a huge plus imo.
  - makmanalp 8y ago
    This is exactly my point. Saying google solves the discoverability problem in this manner is obtuse - it's not the same thing as looking for a specific thing. If you want to make discovering new content that you might like in a decentralized manner easy, then great! I'm sure people will be excited about that. Currently though, medium does that to the first approximation. Also, social news websites require effort to post on, and often the content that gets upvoted is the lowest common denominator of the interests of the people who currently happen to be staring at the site, rather than each person getting their own set of new content.
ognarb 8y ago
Plumes is actually quite interesting as a medium alternative. Not production ready, but with integration in the fediverse
pmlnr 8y ago
Self-hosted personal blogs were always ghost towns. Always. In this case though, this is a branded tech blog, posted to HN (and maybe to Reddit?). It doesn't make a difference, if the endpoint is medium, or a self hosted blog, or a hand written HTML on an FTP server.
CM30 8y ago
I think the whole Medium discoverability thing used to be a lot better in the olden days than now. Then, Medium had some sort of standards for who could join and what they could post about, and it tended to bring up decent content for people visiting. Nowadays? Medium literally does feel like YouTube, in that unless you've got an established audience already finding readers is kind of tricky. Read the Daily Digest they have and note down how many people there are 'average joes' without a large following compared to internet 'influencers' and 'social media celebrities'. And now they've got the paid content thing, it's only gotten even worse from there. Now it feels like the site's trying to force paid content down everyone's throat, and completely ignores the free stuff when deciding what to feature or promote. Hell, sometimes I've had them said emails almost entirely consisting of links to paid articles from publications I don't read. It's definitely like YouTube, but it's less like the YouTube of yore and more like the YouTube of today, a wannabe broadcast TV esque network that pushes celebrities front and centre and does very little to promote lesser known creators.

amelius 8y ago

> but unless the distribution problem is solved Not sure what you mean. The distribution problem is solved by the internet. Discoverability (probably what you meant) is solved redundantly by Medium, since it is already solved by Google, and by social news websites such as HN and Reddit, etc. Medium = YouTube for textual content. The only way we "need" it is if we want a feed of algorithmically chosen content based on previous/popular preferences, but that obviously comes with a bunch of problems of its own.

ryandrake 8y ago
Unfortunate that the Internet community (writers and readers) are sacrificing so much to the false god of “discoverability.” For a few glorious years, self-hosted decentralized blogs, services and games were a thing. Now everyone is off re-implementing everything that sucked about centralized broadcast media.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Because they recognized that there was some value in the centralization, namely that it makes it far easier for users to find content. Putting your own blog out there into the ether is far, far, far more difficult to drive users to it. And then, if you want to have comments, now you have to invest time and effort into moderation and anti-spam, whereas here Medium takes care of most of that.
endless1234 8y ago
>Medium = YouTube for textual content. The only way we "need" it is if we want a feed of algorithmically chosen content based on previous/popular preference Are you saying this is a bad thing in and of itself? Ok, sometimes I binge on videos needlessly, but to say the distribution/discoverability is already solved by the internet and Google is probably not how most people see it. Being recommended new content to consume based on previous preferences is a huge plus imo.
- makmanalp 8y ago
  This is exactly my point. Saying google solves the discoverability problem in this manner is obtuse - it's not the same thing as looking for a specific thing. If you want to make discovering new content that you might like in a decentralized manner easy, then great! I'm sure people will be excited about that. Currently though, medium does that to the first approximation. Also, social news websites require effort to post on, and often the content that gets upvoted is the lowest common denominator of the interests of the people who currently happen to be staring at the site, rather than each person getting their own set of new content.

ognarb 8y ago

Plumes is actually quite interesting as a medium alternative. Not production ready, but with integration in the fediverse

pmlnr 8y ago

Self-hosted personal blogs were always ghost towns. Always. In this case though, this is a branded tech blog, posted to HN (and maybe to Reddit?). It doesn't make a difference, if the endpoint is medium, or a self hosted blog, or a hand written HTML on an FTP server.

CM30 8y ago

I think the whole Medium discoverability thing used to be a lot better in the olden days than now. Then, Medium had some sort of standards for who could join and what they could post about, and it tended to bring up decent content for people visiting. Nowadays? Medium literally does feel like YouTube, in that unless you've got an established audience already finding readers is kind of tricky. Read the Daily Digest they have and note down how many people there are 'average joes' without a large following compared to internet 'influencers' and 'social media celebrities'. And now they've got the paid content thing, it's only gotten even worse from there. Now it feels like the site's trying to force paid content down everyone's throat, and completely ignores the free stuff when deciding what to feature or promote. Hell, sometimes I've had them said emails almost entirely consisting of links to paid articles from publications I don't read. It's definitely like YouTube, but it's less like the YouTube of yore and more like the YouTube of today, a wannabe broadcast TV esque network that pushes celebrities front and centre and does very little to promote lesser known creators.