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Serious question: why do people, software developers actually, use Medium for blogging? - they nag mobile users to install a shitty app "optimized for readers"

Serious question: why do people, software developers actually, use Medium for blogging? - they nag mobile users to install a shitty app "optimized for readers" because apparently the browser is no longer suitable for freaking blogs - they nag desktop users to login - they are in fact not GDPR compliant - the downloaded pages are huge, the browser ends up downloading and interpreting over 2 megabytes of crap in order to display 3 paragraphs of text - the domain name isn't yours so you can lose your content and your identity and it isn't easy to port to other platforms Why do you put up with this shit? I have a blog built with a static site generator since 2008, with minimal maintenance and costs required, on my own domain, with changes tracked in Github. My blog is at this point at least 4 years older than all Medium accounts and will probably outlast Medium. This may not be for your grandmother, but you're a software developer and the setup would take you one day of work. It actually takes more than that to write a good article.

mikewhy 8y ago
It's the experience of reading comments that does it for me. It's just so poor.
eat_veggies 8y ago
In addition, the lack of syntax highlighting means authors have to either - deal with shitty monochrome code - have unsearchable and uncopyable screenshots - embed a gist iframe All of these suck. Jekyll/Hugo/every other blogging solution has this feature out of the box as table stakes.
SkyMarshal 8y ago
I don't use Medium but I know one big reason is for their network and promotional features. If you're not active on social media and don't have a big following you can post your blog posts to, then Medium helps disseminate your writing to a larger audience with similar interests.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Sure, but a blog is how you get a social media following. I don't buy that Medium can do a better job of connecting you with people. For programming you can just take that link and post it on Reddit and you'll get plenty of visitors.
  - SkyMarshal 8y ago
    It's not either/or, it's all of the above. They blog on Medium, leverage its network, and post on reddit/Twitter/etc.
KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
Wat. 1 day of work for a SV dev is at least 1000 dollars, that's far too expensive.
- bad_user 8y ago
  By that metric taking a pee costs at least $20.
  - ucosty 8y ago
    Far less costly than dealing with the medical problems you'd get from not peeing.
NicoJuicy 8y ago
Network effect of medium could be one
marcobellinaso 8y ago
In my case, it's not at all for the network effect, since these days they have too much content and anyway favor "premium" posts in terms of visibility...so for me it's more about the following: * I don't need to create my own blog. I know, it takes a 5 minutes, have done it many many times before...just to kill it some time after because seeing it so empty was too sad. With Medium you publish whenever you want, and because it's not really "your blog", it doesn't feel as sad if you don't publish anything for months and months. * it's super simple to paste images, code snippets and videos. I can just focus on writing and I know it will "look good" in the end. Sounds stupid, but it's true. * I don't have to worry about spam comments, t&c, privacy policy (if I want to have analytics, which Medium has) etc...it's all on them So yes, for a non-prolific writer, I think it works well. It's a pity they no longer allow custom domains though (which they had in the past), and at times it's toooo limited (eg: no nested bulleted/numbered lists...which I usually used a lot), but still good enough. I'd probably switch to my own blog if were to publish stuff regularly and wanted to have my own "brand"/style/design.
- bauerd 8y ago
  >I can just focus on writing and I know it will "look good" in the end. Sounds stupid, but it's true. It does not look good and your content is not easy to read on devices with smaller screens. That's not a political argument, honestly I couldn't care less where you decide to host the stuff you write, but the reading experience medium.com offers on small screens is simply not good. I will not download an app to read someone's blog posts. I will not dismiss the same obnoxious banner multiple times a day either.
michaelbrooks 8y ago
I agree and people who say about Medium's networking abilities, well WordPress already does this. You can self-host your blog using WordPress and connect it to their WordPress.com site using JetPack. Hey presto, you have a huge network of WordPress Bloggers with the advantages of controlling your own Blog. Also, I applaud you on creating your own blog using a static site generator, the speed improvements and easier reading are great. I do however hope you also have an RSS feed so readers can subscribe and syndicate it[0]. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/RSS/Getting_Started/Syndicating https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/RSS/Getting_Sta...
- kkarakk 8y ago
  no one really uses RSS anymore imo, i just "subscribe" to the author on twitter - that way i get more interaction than just notification of articles
always_good 8y ago
> you're a software developer and the setup would take you one day of work I hear this a lot and I don't get it. Just because I'm tech savvy doesn't mean I want to do everything myself. My time on earth is finite like everyone else's. I don't value it less just because I can program. I've built my own blog many times, actually. But the purpose of a blog is to write and share content. Every second I spend messing with the blog is energy I could've allocated towards writing content. Also, static site generators tend to not have nice publishing editors, like the ability to just drag an image in. But we really need to dispose of this idea that "you can build anything so why don't you want to build everything?" I also think hosting my email is a waste of my time.
levosmetalo 8y ago
> Serious question: why do people, software developers actually, use Medium for blogging? Serious question: why first comment on HN have to be totally unrelated to the fine article? Do we really need to discuss medium issues every time a blog post entry is posted here, instead of discussing the post itself. Serious question 2: Why don't you write a blog post about "Using Medium for blogging" on your own static self-hosted blog, and put a link here for discussing it?
- apl002 8y ago
  thank you for saying that. so annoying
Kiro 8y ago
Why are they not GDPR compliant?
chappi42 8y ago
It's really bad. On my small phone in landscape orientation, the header has a height of 1.5 cm, the footer 1.0 cm and the content 3 cm.

mikewhy 8y ago

It's the experience of reading comments that does it for me. It's just so poor.

eat_veggies 8y ago

In addition, the lack of syntax highlighting means authors have to either - deal with shitty monochrome code - have unsearchable and uncopyable screenshots - embed a gist iframe All of these suck. Jekyll/Hugo/every other blogging solution has this feature out of the box as table stakes.

SkyMarshal 8y ago

I don't use Medium but I know one big reason is for their network and promotional features. If you're not active on social media and don't have a big following you can post your blog posts to, then Medium helps disseminate your writing to a larger audience with similar interests.

bad_user 8y ago
Sure, but a blog is how you get a social media following. I don't buy that Medium can do a better job of connecting you with people. For programming you can just take that link and post it on Reddit and you'll get plenty of visitors.
- SkyMarshal 8y ago
  It's not either/or, it's all of the above. They blog on Medium, leverage its network, and post on reddit/Twitter/etc.

KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago

Wat. 1 day of work for a SV dev is at least 1000 dollars, that's far too expensive.

bad_user 8y ago
By that metric taking a pee costs at least $20.
- ucosty 8y ago
  Far less costly than dealing with the medical problems you'd get from not peeing.

NicoJuicy 8y ago

Network effect of medium could be one

marcobellinaso 8y ago

In my case, it's not at all for the network effect, since these days they have too much content and anyway favor "premium" posts in terms of visibility...so for me it's more about the following: * I don't need to create my own blog. I know, it takes a 5 minutes, have done it many many times before...just to kill it some time after because seeing it so empty was too sad. With Medium you publish whenever you want, and because it's not really "your blog", it doesn't feel as sad if you don't publish anything for months and months. * it's super simple to paste images, code snippets and videos. I can just focus on writing and I know it will "look good" in the end. Sounds stupid, but it's true. * I don't have to worry about spam comments, t&c, privacy policy (if I want to have analytics, which Medium has) etc...it's all on them So yes, for a non-prolific writer, I think it works well. It's a pity they no longer allow custom domains though (which they had in the past), and at times it's toooo limited (eg: no nested bulleted/numbered lists...which I usually used a lot), but still good enough. I'd probably switch to my own blog if were to publish stuff regularly and wanted to have my own "brand"/style/design.

bauerd 8y ago
>I can just focus on writing and I know it will "look good" in the end. Sounds stupid, but it's true. It does not look good and your content is not easy to read on devices with smaller screens. That's not a political argument, honestly I couldn't care less where you decide to host the stuff you write, but the reading experience medium.com offers on small screens is simply not good. I will not download an app to read someone's blog posts. I will not dismiss the same obnoxious banner multiple times a day either.

michaelbrooks 8y ago

I agree and people who say about Medium's networking abilities, well WordPress already does this. You can self-host your blog using WordPress and connect it to their WordPress.com site using JetPack. Hey presto, you have a huge network of WordPress Bloggers with the advantages of controlling your own Blog. Also, I applaud you on creating your own blog using a static site generator, the speed improvements and easier reading are great. I do however hope you also have an RSS feed so readers can subscribe and syndicate it[0]. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/RSS/Getting_Started/Syndicating https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/RSS/Getting_Sta...

kkarakk 8y ago
no one really uses RSS anymore imo, i just "subscribe" to the author on twitter - that way i get more interaction than just notification of articles

always_good 8y ago

> you're a software developer and the setup would take you one day of work I hear this a lot and I don't get it. Just because I'm tech savvy doesn't mean I want to do everything myself. My time on earth is finite like everyone else's. I don't value it less just because I can program. I've built my own blog many times, actually. But the purpose of a blog is to write and share content. Every second I spend messing with the blog is energy I could've allocated towards writing content. Also, static site generators tend to not have nice publishing editors, like the ability to just drag an image in. But we really need to dispose of this idea that "you can build anything so why don't you want to build everything?" I also think hosting my email is a waste of my time.

levosmetalo 8y ago

> Serious question: why do people, software developers actually, use Medium for blogging? Serious question: why first comment on HN have to be totally unrelated to the fine article? Do we really need to discuss medium issues every time a blog post entry is posted here, instead of discussing the post itself. Serious question 2: Why don't you write a blog post about "Using Medium for blogging" on your own static self-hosted blog, and put a link here for discussing it?

apl002 8y ago
thank you for saying that. so annoying

Kiro 8y ago

Why are they not GDPR compliant?

chappi42 8y ago

It's really bad. On my small phone in landscape orientation, the header has a height of 1.5 cm, the footer 1.0 cm and the content 3 cm.