5 ms·

I agree. Many years ago I was really happy with medium as a reader. And the feed algorithm was decent enough. By no means the perfect content but for the most p

I agree. Many years ago I was really happy with medium as a reader. And the feed algorithm was decent enough. By no means the perfect content but for the most part it pushed forward things I was interested in. However, the monetization model turned medium(originally a decent blogging platform) into tumblr and it was a race to the bottom from that point. Any website that asks you to register in order to read a blog post immediately goes on my blacklist. What is annoying though is that often people who self-host their blogs make the exact same mistake. More and more often I see something that will grab my attention and when I get to the bottom of a blog post, I find something along the lines of "The full guide is available in my free e-book, which you can download from here". And when you click "here", you are greeted with "Please enter your e-mail address". Sure, everyone has a spam-mail type of thing or mailinator or whatever but this is still a terrible thing to do.

siscia 6y ago
Writing good content take time and the content is valuable. I don't see it wrong to use it as marketing strategy.
- dhimes 6y ago
  I agree there's nothing wrong with it. But does it work? Does Medium make money? It might be, despite the whining, they have it right in that they don't let an expectation of "this is free" ever develop. That strategy might be better than writing a long-ish blog entry as a teaser, where the reader thinks they are going to get their information for free, only to be told "Psyche! You've actually got to pay for it!"
tomcam 6y ago
> this is still a terrible thing to do. What’s the alternative, assuming the blogger doesn’t want to give everything away for free?
- axegon_ 6y ago
  If the content is of any real value, I'd be more than happy to pay for it with money. 10 bucks? Sure, here you go. A much better option than getting emails such as "20 lessons I learned from my job interview" or whatever.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    Everyone says they'd do that, but I find really hard to believe. I create rare, valuable information that saves people money and headaches. On a good month, 2% of my revenue will come from donations. Usually, it's 0%. At best, it pays for a meal and a beer. This website has 135k page views per month. If that's how much I get from teaching people how to navigate German bureaucracy, I doubt you'll make anything from your opinions alone.
    - axegon_ 6y ago
      Some of us actually do. A quick scroll through my paypal, I've donated somewhere over 1000 euros in the past two years to various foundations and individual content creators. And having some experience with German bureaucracy and taxes, and also having never lived in Germany nor speaking German, I'm fully aware how convoluted and complicated this can be and I could definitely see myself donating/paying for useful information if I didn't have a good accountant at my disposal. I agree, on the grand scheme you won't make a whole lot but even with a population of 83 million, even if you add another 1 million like myself, your content still fits a relatively narrow niche. I'd love to give some advice but I honestly have no idea.
      - nicbou 6y ago
        You are an exception. If one in 83 unique visitors donated I'd be well off, but it's not the case. I'm a bit tired of people pretending the internet could survive on donations and micropayments. Affiliate marketing works well for my niche. I wanted to start similar sites about other topics, but if those don't naturally lead to certain purchases, they're extremely hard to effectively monetise.
tjpnz 6y ago
It's rather telling that the first thing Medium does is flash a login prompt in your face when landing on one of their pages. At that point I tend to go elsewhere.
- anupamchugh 6y ago
  This isn’t medium’s fault. It’s the writers who’ve opted to put articles behind paywall to earn from the MPP.
- evdub 6y ago
  That's not actually a thing that happens anymore FYI.
insickness 6y ago
So you read the full blog post for free, then you get to the bottom and see that they are promoting an e-book free in exchange for an email address and that's terrible to you? Does it piss you off when authors don't give away their books for free as well?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

siscia 6y ago

Writing good content take time and the content is valuable. I don't see it wrong to use it as marketing strategy.

dhimes 6y ago
I agree there's nothing wrong with it. But does it work? Does Medium make money? It might be, despite the whining, they have it right in that they don't let an expectation of "this is free" ever develop. That strategy might be better than writing a long-ish blog entry as a teaser, where the reader thinks they are going to get their information for free, only to be told "Psyche! You've actually got to pay for it!"

tomcam 6y ago

> this is still a terrible thing to do. What’s the alternative, assuming the blogger doesn’t want to give everything away for free?

axegon_ 6y ago
If the content is of any real value, I'd be more than happy to pay for it with money. 10 bucks? Sure, here you go. A much better option than getting emails such as "20 lessons I learned from my job interview" or whatever.
- nicbou 6y ago
  Everyone says they'd do that, but I find really hard to believe. I create rare, valuable information that saves people money and headaches. On a good month, 2% of my revenue will come from donations. Usually, it's 0%. At best, it pays for a meal and a beer. This website has 135k page views per month. If that's how much I get from teaching people how to navigate German bureaucracy, I doubt you'll make anything from your opinions alone.
  - axegon_ 6y ago
    Some of us actually do. A quick scroll through my paypal, I've donated somewhere over 1000 euros in the past two years to various foundations and individual content creators. And having some experience with German bureaucracy and taxes, and also having never lived in Germany nor speaking German, I'm fully aware how convoluted and complicated this can be and I could definitely see myself donating/paying for useful information if I didn't have a good accountant at my disposal. I agree, on the grand scheme you won't make a whole lot but even with a population of 83 million, even if you add another 1 million like myself, your content still fits a relatively narrow niche. I'd love to give some advice but I honestly have no idea.
    - nicbou 6y ago
      You are an exception. If one in 83 unique visitors donated I'd be well off, but it's not the case. I'm a bit tired of people pretending the internet could survive on donations and micropayments. Affiliate marketing works well for my niche. I wanted to start similar sites about other topics, but if those don't naturally lead to certain purchases, they're extremely hard to effectively monetise.

tjpnz 6y ago

It's rather telling that the first thing Medium does is flash a login prompt in your face when landing on one of their pages. At that point I tend to go elsewhere.

anupamchugh 6y ago
This isn’t medium’s fault. It’s the writers who’ve opted to put articles behind paywall to earn from the MPP.
evdub 6y ago
That's not actually a thing that happens anymore FYI.

insickness 6y ago

So you read the full blog post for free, then you get to the bottom and see that they are promoting an e-book free in exchange for an email address and that's terrible to you? Does it piss you off when authors don't give away their books for free as well?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]