8 ms·

I don't get why devs work so hard on their project/tutorial, only to be lazy on the last step (publishing/announcement) and give away their content to be publis

I don't get why devs work so hard on their project/tutorial, only to be lazy on the last step (publishing/announcement) and give away their content to be published on Medium. It's very easy to roll out a Hugo/Jekyll/Zola static blog published for free on Github/Gitlab/Netlify. Then point it to your own domain name so you own your content and don't have to worry about what some 3rd party site does on top of your writing.

dewey 7y ago
> I don't get why devs work so hard on their project... Because in the early days of Medium you got a lot of reach through them promoting your content on other blog posts. This now went down a lot from what I've read and the additional paywall / nagging module on each visit is not helping either. I think it'll naturally disappear as more and more people realize that creating their own site isn't that hard any more and having your own domain / brand is useful.
- buboard 7y ago
  > having your own domain / brand is useful. I wish more people realized that. It costs as much as a cup of coffee per month and you can also use it for backups etc. Wordpress comes preinstalled and autoupdating in most hosts.
mikece 7y ago
Probably because after crafting a product, solution, or e-polemic, the last thing we’re interested in doing is wrangling a manual process when an in-browser wysiwyg composer gets the job done. Yes, medium is a visual pain (unless you don’t reflexively engage reader mode on Firefox or Safari). The next best (least worst) option is probably a self-hosted WordPress blog with zero/few plugins.
- sexy_seedbox 7y ago
  > The next best (least worst) option is probably a self-hosted WordPress blog with zero/few plugins. If you already have dev experience, I'd argue that rolling out a static blog with a pre-made Hugo/Jekyll theme (lots of Medium-ish clones) would be just as fast as rolling out a self-hosted WordPress blog.
austhrow743 7y ago
It's not laziness. Medium comes with an audience and rolling your own likely doesn't. It's a question of do you get more people from medium than people you lose from other sources because your post is on medium?
- sexy_seedbox 7y ago
  > It's not laziness... If/When Medium decides to add more popups, tracking or advertise over your writing and you'll eventually have to move off the platform, you'll probably regret not having put in the work up front to own and publish your own content. Also, if your project/article is interesting, people will share it after some minor promoting on social medium or on HN, regardless if it's on Medium or not.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    "Also, if your project/article is interesting, people will share it after some minor promoting on social medium or on HN, regardless if it's on Medium or not." People who are part of the audience you don't have because you aren't on Medium?
- buboard 7y ago
  What audience? All the medium articles i read, i found here, in reddit or Twitter
  - krapp 7y ago
    You just described three link aggregators, sites whose purpose is to spread third party content. The audience is the people posting Medium articles, and the people who follow them back to Medium.
    - buboard 7y ago
      shocking i know, but i don't follow anyone on medium (i dont even have an account)
theaccordance 7y ago
Rolling your own blog still requires time & effort to start/maintain, without any of the organic reach of publishing platforms.
Etheryte 7y ago
As someone who went through the whole thing just recently [1], it is a respectable opinion, but at the same time, it will eat your afternoon. Every step is very straightforward individually (configure Jekyll, set up Netlify, buy a domain), but the sum of the parts is still a considerable time sink if it isn't what you do for bread and butter. I know I configured DNS records in uni networking class many years ago, doesn't mean I remember the slightest of it. The friction obviously goes down if you've already gone through the process before, but if you're simply looking to get your voice out there, it can be very tempting to use a packaged solution. Medium simply has a big name, so that's what a lot of people default to. [1] https://www.karltarvas.com/ https://www.karltarvas.com/
- StavrosK 7y ago
  While this is true, I feel that Netlify et al also make it very easy to get started. All you need to do is find a repository that has Jekyll configured the way you like it and clone that. Bonus points if it has Gitlab pages defined.
- lostmsu 7y ago
  You can just clone Jekyll Now: https://github.com/barryclark/jekyll-now/ https://github.com/barryclark/jekyll-now/ That gets you yourname.github.io instantly. There is also https://habr.com https://habr.com , but there is always a risk that they go the way Medium went.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kbob 7y ago
What's the best privacy-respecting way to attach comments to a static site? I've got a 'blog on github.io, but have never set up comments. I've never enabled analytics either. I just assume I have 100 million readers. (-:
- zackboe 7y ago
  I haven't personally toyed with either, but I've seen these used with increasing frequency. https://commento.io/ https://commento.io/ https://utteranc.es/ https://utteranc.es/

dewey 7y ago

> I don't get why devs work so hard on their project... Because in the early days of Medium you got a lot of reach through them promoting your content on other blog posts. This now went down a lot from what I've read and the additional paywall / nagging module on each visit is not helping either. I think it'll naturally disappear as more and more people realize that creating their own site isn't that hard any more and having your own domain / brand is useful.

buboard 7y ago
> having your own domain / brand is useful. I wish more people realized that. It costs as much as a cup of coffee per month and you can also use it for backups etc. Wordpress comes preinstalled and autoupdating in most hosts.

mikece 7y ago

Probably because after crafting a product, solution, or e-polemic, the last thing we’re interested in doing is wrangling a manual process when an in-browser wysiwyg composer gets the job done. Yes, medium is a visual pain (unless you don’t reflexively engage reader mode on Firefox or Safari). The next best (least worst) option is probably a self-hosted WordPress blog with zero/few plugins.

sexy_seedbox 7y ago
> The next best (least worst) option is probably a self-hosted WordPress blog with zero/few plugins. If you already have dev experience, I'd argue that rolling out a static blog with a pre-made Hugo/Jekyll theme (lots of Medium-ish clones) would be just as fast as rolling out a self-hosted WordPress blog.

austhrow743 7y ago

It's not laziness. Medium comes with an audience and rolling your own likely doesn't. It's a question of do you get more people from medium than people you lose from other sources because your post is on medium?

sexy_seedbox 7y ago
> It's not laziness... If/When Medium decides to add more popups, tracking or advertise over your writing and you'll eventually have to move off the platform, you'll probably regret not having put in the work up front to own and publish your own content. Also, if your project/article is interesting, people will share it after some minor promoting on social medium or on HN, regardless if it's on Medium or not.
- craftinator 7y ago
  "Also, if your project/article is interesting, people will share it after some minor promoting on social medium or on HN, regardless if it's on Medium or not." People who are part of the audience you don't have because you aren't on Medium?
buboard 7y ago
What audience? All the medium articles i read, i found here, in reddit or Twitter
- krapp 7y ago
  You just described three link aggregators, sites whose purpose is to spread third party content. The audience is the people posting Medium articles, and the people who follow them back to Medium.
  - buboard 7y ago
    shocking i know, but i don't follow anyone on medium (i dont even have an account)

theaccordance 7y ago

Rolling your own blog still requires time & effort to start/maintain, without any of the organic reach of publishing platforms.

Etheryte 7y ago

As someone who went through the whole thing just recently [1], it is a respectable opinion, but at the same time, it will eat your afternoon. Every step is very straightforward individually (configure Jekyll, set up Netlify, buy a domain), but the sum of the parts is still a considerable time sink if it isn't what you do for bread and butter. I know I configured DNS records in uni networking class many years ago, doesn't mean I remember the slightest of it. The friction obviously goes down if you've already gone through the process before, but if you're simply looking to get your voice out there, it can be very tempting to use a packaged solution. Medium simply has a big name, so that's what a lot of people default to. [1] https://www.karltarvas.com/ https://www.karltarvas.com/

StavrosK 7y ago
While this is true, I feel that Netlify et al also make it very easy to get started. All you need to do is find a repository that has Jekyll configured the way you like it and clone that. Bonus points if it has Gitlab pages defined.
lostmsu 7y ago
You can just clone Jekyll Now: https://github.com/barryclark/jekyll-now/ https://github.com/barryclark/jekyll-now/ That gets you yourname.github.io instantly. There is also https://habr.com https://habr.com , but there is always a risk that they go the way Medium went.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kbob 7y ago

What's the best privacy-respecting way to attach comments to a static site? I've got a 'blog on github.io, but have never set up comments. I've never enabled analytics either. I just assume I have 100 million readers. (-:

zackboe 7y ago
I haven't personally toyed with either, but I've seen these used with increasing frequency. https://commento.io/ https://commento.io/ https://utteranc.es/ https://utteranc.es/