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For anyone seeing this, I tried to help Medium solve this coming from the other direction, which is to make it an over the top good value for HN readers to not

For anyone seeing this, I tried to help Medium solve this coming from the other direction, which is to make it an over the top good value for HN readers to not only log in but also pay for the $5 subscription. That's really what Medium aspires to be--a place worthy of a five dollar subscription. Many people here probably end up on Medium repeatedly via Google search and yeah, the results are mixed. But also, it's worth noting that a lot of those results wouldn't exist at all without Medium paying and encouraging writers and editors. What I hoped would start to take Medium over the top though was the addition of all of The Pragmatic Programmer books. That was paid for by other tech people who had already subscribed. (And I played a role in bringing them on board). There's more coming. But overall, this is 100% Medium's direction and belief that a soft paywall is a better business and a bigger win for all parties than free & ad supported. So this paywall isn't going away, and it's really on them to do more to justify it.

pier25 6y ago
> That's really what Medium aspires to be--a place worthy of a five dollar subscription. That's not going to happen simply because Medium is not responsible for the content. There's really nothing positive associated to the Medium brand in terms of content. Users want valuable content for their money and won't pay a subscription to a hosting provider.
- tonystubblebine 6y ago
  You don’t think the Pragmatic Programmer books are valuable?
  - pier25 6y ago
    Sure, but why pay a subscription (to Medium of all companies) when I can just buy the book I specifically want to read? Edit: btw the point I was making earlier is not if there is actually some value in Medium or not. I'm sure there are interesting and valuable pieces already there. But you need more than that to convince people to pay a subscription.
    - tonystubblebine 6y ago
      > to Medium of all companies FWIW, the subscription is paid to the authors & publishers. You subscribe to Medium, but then that subscription money gets parceled out to the authors you end up reading.
      - pier25 6y ago
        First, medium must take a chunk of that, otherwise how is it going to survive? And second, Medium is known for being an unethical company. Look for example how they harassed publications like Free Code Camp: > “But over the past year Medium had become more aggressive toward us,” Larson said. “They have pressured us to put our articles behind their paywalls. We refused. So they tried to buy us. (Which makes no sense. We’re a public charity.) We refused. Then they started threatening us with a lawyer.” https://wptavern.com/freecodecamp-moves-off-of-medium-after-being-pressured-to-put-articles-behind-paywalls https://wptavern.com/freecodecamp-moves-off-of-medium-after-...
        tonystubblebine 6y ago
        Yeah, I followed that story pretty closely, including talking to a lot of the authors who were in that publication. It was all very suspect in that it seemed like FCC was trying to create controversy to obscure their own bad, probably illegal, act. For one, the pressure was just that Medium went from not having a business model to choosing subscriptions as their business model and that had a lot of ripple effects in terms of incentives. I guess that creates "pressure" but it's hard to fault a company for having a business if the alternative is going out of business. Anyone saying this is a vanity project for Medium's CEO and thus doesn't need to be a business is way off base. He made his money in publishing platforms (Blogger, Twitter) and Medium is just more of the same. But what that subscription pivot led to was some publications feeling like they should leave. Only problem is that they don't have a license to any of the articles in their publications. So leaving, legally speaking, would mean starting with zero traffic. I'm 99.5% certain that what is called here "threatening us with a lawyer" was simply explaining the Medium Terms of Service which leave the copyright with the authors and ask for minimal license for use throughout the Medium network. It's definitely not the case that publications gain any right to license an author's work more broadly. That didn't stop FCC though. They copied thousands of author's work and moved it to a new site. Medium had no standing though--they don't own the copyright and so can't enforce it. And so that left a lot of authors in a weird position where they needed to decide whether it was worth figuring out their rights and fighting for it or what. I'm sure some were fine with the move, but I also talked to many that were upset. In any case, it definitely wasn't legal on FCCs part.

pier25 6y ago

> That's really what Medium aspires to be--a place worthy of a five dollar subscription. That's not going to happen simply because Medium is not responsible for the content. There's really nothing positive associated to the Medium brand in terms of content. Users want valuable content for their money and won't pay a subscription to a hosting provider.

tonystubblebine 6y ago
You don’t think the Pragmatic Programmer books are valuable?
- pier25 6y ago
  Sure, but why pay a subscription (to Medium of all companies) when I can just buy the book I specifically want to read? Edit: btw the point I was making earlier is not if there is actually some value in Medium or not. I'm sure there are interesting and valuable pieces already there. But you need more than that to convince people to pay a subscription.
  - tonystubblebine 6y ago
    > to Medium of all companies FWIW, the subscription is paid to the authors & publishers. You subscribe to Medium, but then that subscription money gets parceled out to the authors you end up reading.
    - pier25 6y ago
      First, medium must take a chunk of that, otherwise how is it going to survive? And second, Medium is known for being an unethical company. Look for example how they harassed publications like Free Code Camp: > “But over the past year Medium had become more aggressive toward us,” Larson said. “They have pressured us to put our articles behind their paywalls. We refused. So they tried to buy us. (Which makes no sense. We’re a public charity.) We refused. Then they started threatening us with a lawyer.” https://wptavern.com/freecodecamp-moves-off-of-medium-after-being-pressured-to-put-articles-behind-paywalls https://wptavern.com/freecodecamp-moves-off-of-medium-after-...
      - tonystubblebine 6y ago
        Yeah, I followed that story pretty closely, including talking to a lot of the authors who were in that publication. It was all very suspect in that it seemed like FCC was trying to create controversy to obscure their own bad, probably illegal, act. For one, the pressure was just that Medium went from not having a business model to choosing subscriptions as their business model and that had a lot of ripple effects in terms of incentives. I guess that creates "pressure" but it's hard to fault a company for having a business if the alternative is going out of business. Anyone saying this is a vanity project for Medium's CEO and thus doesn't need to be a business is way off base. He made his money in publishing platforms (Blogger, Twitter) and Medium is just more of the same. But what that subscription pivot led to was some publications feeling like they should leave. Only problem is that they don't have a license to any of the articles in their publications. So leaving, legally speaking, would mean starting with zero traffic. I'm 99.5% certain that what is called here "threatening us with a lawyer" was simply explaining the Medium Terms of Service which leave the copyright with the authors and ask for minimal license for use throughout the Medium network. It's definitely not the case that publications gain any right to license an author's work more broadly. That didn't stop FCC though. They copied thousands of author's work and moved it to a new site. Medium had no standing though--they don't own the copyright and so can't enforce it. And so that left a lot of authors in a weird position where they needed to decide whether it was worth figuring out their rights and fighting for it or what. I'm sure some were fine with the move, but I also talked to many that were upset. In any case, it definitely wasn't legal on FCCs part.