6 ms·

There is nothing wrong in making money, if you want to attract good content writers and curate content, provide additional services like digital magazine, you h

There is nothing wrong in making money, if you want to attract good content writers and curate content, provide additional services like digital magazine, you have to make money to pay your writers, curators and staff. I don't write for Medium, but I think rather than trashing Medium, maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers. There is enough garbage out in the internet, maybe Medium can help clean it up.

cujo 8y ago
> maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers Or maybe that's their mission and they should do that? I'm not sure why any of us as writer or readers should or could do this.
taude 8y ago
I'm sure there's other like me here, but I don't even click on articles published in Medium anymore because I don't want to deal with their gigantic popup that interferes with me getting to the content. I think we're eventually going to see a resurgence in open platforms where content creators better control their content. I don't think the discoverability of these content hubs is worth it, I personally do more discovery other ways and usually only end up on the site after a recommendation, etc...
- habeebtc 8y ago
  I legitimately want to read the articles--they have a lot of interesting ones. The curious thing is that often enough you can't even click through--they insist that it's "Medium Exclusive" content and you can only view 3 a month. (Browser Private mode helps, but is not a panacea) But... If I search the 'net for the title of the supposed Exclusive article, I can frequently find it elsewhere with no nagging or paywall. I don't really believe Medium has the exclusive content that gives it an advantage over anything else, but it's useful as curated, indexed content that you can find elsewhere. This is probably not what they are going for, though.
  - dhimes 8y ago
    Serious question: Why don't you sign up?
- potta_coffee 8y ago
  I miss the days when people had their own websites, blogs, whatever, and then there were forums. Facebook has killed forums and I hate them for it.
  - asark 8y ago
    Not just Facebook. Any site without attention paid to on-site SEO is basically impossible to find since Google gave up fighting the spammers and (effectively) stopped trying to provide access to a bunch of the web. That was back in, like, '08 or '09. The other day I was trying to find a Russian world-traveller photo blog I used to read but lost track of, and it was plain from the results that Google's 1) heavily penalizing low-traffic sites to the point of giving me top results that contain almost none of my keywords when there 100% for sure had to be sites that contained all of them, and 2) barely paying attention to text linking to a site anymore. I'm not even upset I couldn't find the site I wanted using my search terms so much as that part of their surrender to the spammers meant that most of the top results were "legitimate" content-mill spammers-by-another-name. I don't think I could have found anything like what I was looking for. Any similarly-obscure sites are just invisible now. DDG wasn't much better. The spammers won and "web search" doesn't really search the whole web anymore, or even close to it.
    - StrictDabbler 8y ago
      Oh, that's what's going on. If I search, for example, "proton transfer balalaika" I get search results where the first few results are "Missing: balalaika | Must include: balalaika" but a result after these has all three search terms. I've been wondering what Google now thinks the word "must" means and why they're putting pages that don't include words that I've used above pages that do. That's frustrating. Low-volume sites represent a significant portion of the web results I need.
      - cygaril 8y ago
        The "must include" is a hyperlink. Click it and you'll get results that do include that word.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  >>I think we're eventually going to see a resurgence in open platforms where content creators better control their content. Sure, but as those platforms grow, they will run into the same problem: having to pay for infrastructure. That shit ain’t cheap once you get past a certain size.
moorhosj 8y ago
Nobody said there is anything wrong with making money, that’s a straw man. The reality is that taking venture funding has forced these companies to compromise what made them useful in order to chase revenue for investors.
- criddell 8y ago
  The venture funding doesn't really have anything to do with it, does it? Even if they were entirely self funded, they still need to generate enough revenue to cover their costs. It feels like Medium is circling the drain.
  - moorhosj 8y ago
    Sure it does, venture funding comes with investors seeking to make a large return in a specific timeframe. If they were entirely self-funded, they could slowly ramp revenue streams and build on a sustainable base. Getting a large influx of funding forces a company to search for faster growth to justify the valuation and deliver projected future growth. In 2017, Medium laid-off 1/3 of their workforce because their advertising model wasn't working [1]. The implication is that they hired a bunch of people to sell something that nobody wanted. A self-funded company, would have likely never hired those people in the first place. That company would be on firmer footing now, but would have gotten less HN/TechCrunch coverage in the process. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2017/01/04/medium-lays-off-50-employees-closes-offices-in-new-york-and-washington-d-c/#3c6ee2e31d35 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2017/01/04/medium-la...
    - criddell 8y ago
      So the venture funding is just giving them more rope to hang themselves with? It's letting them make bigger, more costly mistakes? I would bet many of the investors were making a bet on Ev Williams as much as they were on Medium. Medium's business model has always felt a bit exploitative. If they truly are focusing on quality rather than quantity, maybe that will change.
      - deleted 8y ago
eropple 8y ago
> maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers This affinity both for caping up for corporate entities who'd sell you for your component atoms were it feasible to do so, and then for doing free work for them, is so weird. They're the ones making the money. Why isn't it incumbent upon them to do so?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
shanemhansen 8y ago
I don't understand this mindset. In my worldview people deserve investment. VC funded corporations don't deserve any of my time to "make it as a better platform". Companies should live or die by the market and if they piss customers off and lose marketshare, that's the market working for once.
rdiddly 8y ago
There's nothing wrong with making money, but I also don't owe them money. Or attention, or to say nice things.

cujo 8y ago

> maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers Or maybe that's their mission and they should do that? I'm not sure why any of us as writer or readers should or could do this.

taude 8y ago

I'm sure there's other like me here, but I don't even click on articles published in Medium anymore because I don't want to deal with their gigantic popup that interferes with me getting to the content. I think we're eventually going to see a resurgence in open platforms where content creators better control their content. I don't think the discoverability of these content hubs is worth it, I personally do more discovery other ways and usually only end up on the site after a recommendation, etc...

habeebtc 8y ago
I legitimately want to read the articles--they have a lot of interesting ones. The curious thing is that often enough you can't even click through--they insist that it's "Medium Exclusive" content and you can only view 3 a month. (Browser Private mode helps, but is not a panacea) But... If I search the 'net for the title of the supposed Exclusive article, I can frequently find it elsewhere with no nagging or paywall. I don't really believe Medium has the exclusive content that gives it an advantage over anything else, but it's useful as curated, indexed content that you can find elsewhere. This is probably not what they are going for, though.
- dhimes 8y ago
  Serious question: Why don't you sign up?
potta_coffee 8y ago
I miss the days when people had their own websites, blogs, whatever, and then there were forums. Facebook has killed forums and I hate them for it.
- asark 8y ago
  Not just Facebook. Any site without attention paid to on-site SEO is basically impossible to find since Google gave up fighting the spammers and (effectively) stopped trying to provide access to a bunch of the web. That was back in, like, '08 or '09. The other day I was trying to find a Russian world-traveller photo blog I used to read but lost track of, and it was plain from the results that Google's 1) heavily penalizing low-traffic sites to the point of giving me top results that contain almost none of my keywords when there 100% for sure had to be sites that contained all of them, and 2) barely paying attention to text linking to a site anymore. I'm not even upset I couldn't find the site I wanted using my search terms so much as that part of their surrender to the spammers meant that most of the top results were "legitimate" content-mill spammers-by-another-name. I don't think I could have found anything like what I was looking for. Any similarly-obscure sites are just invisible now. DDG wasn't much better. The spammers won and "web search" doesn't really search the whole web anymore, or even close to it.
  - StrictDabbler 8y ago
    Oh, that's what's going on. If I search, for example, "proton transfer balalaika" I get search results where the first few results are "Missing: balalaika | Must include: balalaika" but a result after these has all three search terms. I've been wondering what Google now thinks the word "must" means and why they're putting pages that don't include words that I've used above pages that do. That's frustrating. Low-volume sites represent a significant portion of the web results I need.
    - cygaril 8y ago
      The "must include" is a hyperlink. Click it and you'll get results that do include that word.
enraged_camel 8y ago
>>I think we're eventually going to see a resurgence in open platforms where content creators better control their content. Sure, but as those platforms grow, they will run into the same problem: having to pay for infrastructure. That shit ain’t cheap once you get past a certain size.

moorhosj 8y ago

Nobody said there is anything wrong with making money, that’s a straw man. The reality is that taking venture funding has forced these companies to compromise what made them useful in order to chase revenue for investors.

criddell 8y ago
The venture funding doesn't really have anything to do with it, does it? Even if they were entirely self funded, they still need to generate enough revenue to cover their costs. It feels like Medium is circling the drain.
- moorhosj 8y ago
  Sure it does, venture funding comes with investors seeking to make a large return in a specific timeframe. If they were entirely self-funded, they could slowly ramp revenue streams and build on a sustainable base. Getting a large influx of funding forces a company to search for faster growth to justify the valuation and deliver projected future growth. In 2017, Medium laid-off 1/3 of their workforce because their advertising model wasn't working [1]. The implication is that they hired a bunch of people to sell something that nobody wanted. A self-funded company, would have likely never hired those people in the first place. That company would be on firmer footing now, but would have gotten less HN/TechCrunch coverage in the process. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2017/01/04/medium-lays-off-50-employees-closes-offices-in-new-york-and-washington-d-c/#3c6ee2e31d35 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2017/01/04/medium-la...
  - criddell 8y ago
    So the venture funding is just giving them more rope to hang themselves with? It's letting them make bigger, more costly mistakes? I would bet many of the investors were making a bet on Ev Williams as much as they were on Medium. Medium's business model has always felt a bit exploitative. If they truly are focusing on quality rather than quantity, maybe that will change.
    - deleted 8y ago

eropple 8y ago

> maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers This affinity both for caping up for corporate entities who'd sell you for your component atoms were it feasible to do so, and then for doing free work for them, is so weird. They're the ones making the money. Why isn't it incumbent upon them to do so?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

shanemhansen 8y ago

I don't understand this mindset. In my worldview people deserve investment. VC funded corporations don't deserve any of my time to "make it as a better platform". Companies should live or die by the market and if they piss customers off and lose marketshare, that's the market working for once.

rdiddly 8y ago

There's nothing wrong with making money, but I also don't owe them money. Or attention, or to say nice things.