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So you do say it's mainly about signaling your independence and profficiency?

PaulHoule 5y ago
The independence is real. What if substack or medium ends the free ride? I would ask ‘what are you signaling if you don’t get your own domain?’ If it is signaling that you can’t afford $10 a year you are signaling cheapness which is not an appealing or desirable attribute. Medium at first used the power of branding to insinuate it was a place that was a little better than other blogs. Gradually it became known as something that is a little worse. I remember talking to some guy who was amazed that he’d gotten 78 views on an article and I didn’t have the heart to break it to him that it would take more like 250,000 views to impress me. You know the ‘eternal september’? Like it or not some people work a lot harder than other people (how does Casanova bed so many women?) or are a lot smarter or have much more interesting insights. Being on Medium or LinkedIn or other sites lowers people’s perception of you because you get linked to particular styles of discourse that come across as disingenous even when you are sincere.
- dojitza1 5y ago
  So you say being a paying customer gives a higher guarantee that you won't be locked out of your domain and be forced to switch to a new one, potentially losing a good chunk of your readership. It makes sense, and thank you for your answer. As for the signaling, I don't view it as something undesirable. It is an innate human need and we rely on it heavily. I was just wondering what people found useful in addition to it.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    Or worse yet having the neighborhood get gradually worse. What if they don’t kick you off but the ads get more sleazy, distracting, annoying? What if the sidebars are full of engaging clickbait that hurts people psychologically, socially, and poltically? Ultimately you are complicit in that if you stay, but moving is hard, you wind up making excuses for yourself, your heart won’t really line up in your writing.
    - dojitza1 5y ago
      I see that you are a talking about free blogging platforms. I was more interested in the free hosting + domain solutions with your own web page design.

The independence is real. What if substack or medium ends the free ride? I would ask ‘what are you signaling if you don’t get your own domain?’ If it is signaling that you can’t afford $10 a year you are signaling cheapness which is not an appealing or desirable attribute. Medium at first used the power of branding to insinuate it was a place that was a little better than other blogs. Gradually it became known as something that is a little worse. I remember talking to some guy who was amazed that he’d gotten 78 views on an article and I didn’t have the heart to break it to him that it would take more like 250,000 views to impress me. You know the ‘eternal september’? Like it or not some people work a lot harder than other people (how does Casanova bed so many women?) or are a lot smarter or have much more interesting insights. Being on Medium or LinkedIn or other sites lowers people’s perception of you because you get linked to particular styles of discourse that come across as disingenous even when you are sincere.

dojitza1 5y ago
So you say being a paying customer gives a higher guarantee that you won't be locked out of your domain and be forced to switch to a new one, potentially losing a good chunk of your readership. It makes sense, and thank you for your answer. As for the signaling, I don't view it as something undesirable. It is an innate human need and we rely on it heavily. I was just wondering what people found useful in addition to it.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  Or worse yet having the neighborhood get gradually worse. What if they don’t kick you off but the ads get more sleazy, distracting, annoying? What if the sidebars are full of engaging clickbait that hurts people psychologically, socially, and poltically? Ultimately you are complicit in that if you stay, but moving is hard, you wind up making excuses for yourself, your heart won’t really line up in your writing.
  - dojitza1 5y ago
    I see that you are a talking about free blogging platforms. I was more interested in the free hosting + domain solutions with your own web page design.