5 ms·

As a reader there's always a little groan inside when I see something is hosted on Medium. 'Cuz, here, look at it: https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM https://imgur.c

by dilap 4y ago

As a reader there's always a little groan inside when I see something is hosted on Medium. 'Cuz, here, look at it: https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM https://imgur.com/a/EIAp2UM There's so much junk in the way of the content. It feels like Medium doesn't respect the text or the act of reading. Night and day compared to Substack. If I'm in any way typical, you've got a lot of work to do to overcome the negative associations of the brand.

duck 4y ago
I would say it isn't a stretch at all to say most people feel that way. I stopped including any Medium hosted articles in my HN newsletter b/c of complaints from lots of subscribers that they couldn't read them. I'll have to dig up my analysis I did last year (using BigQuery HN data), but on HN there are more Medium links than ever, but they tend not to get voted on at the same rate as older stories which tells me at least for the HN crowd it isn't worth clicking on them.
- geodel 4y ago
  I mean yes, I would not click on any article hosted on medium. And it is not just because of incessant login popup that many correctly noted. It is also because I feel if any individual / company can not host their articles and blogs on their own platform they are not worth reading. I dislike their reasoning on at least two counts: 1) It is too much work: In world of static site publishing and easy cloud hosting it is not too much work for technically competent person to host their own content if they have something worthwhile to say. 2) Not our core competency: Many companies or teams who say this sounds to me management style BS. If hosting few articles in your domain is beyond their competency then I can't really trust whatever cloud, big data, distributed, serverless computing they are talking about.
  - rco8786 4y ago
    It’s interesting that you draw the line specifically at the software serving the post. Should the individual/company own the hardware also? The OS running on the server?
    - wyclif 4y ago
      I don't think the parent is making a point about ownership, but rather publishing. He's saying that in 2022, if you're not competent to publish yourself, it creates doubts about what you have to say about high technology.
      - biztos 4y ago
        I think it’s just the branding awareness that is suspect. You can host a WordPress site on blog.yourcompany.com for an amount that rounds to $0, and it will probably satisfy most people who dislike Medium and other aggregators. Or you can roll your own of course, but the extra geek cred you will get for it is minimal. Not saying don’t do it, I’ve done it more than once, but do it for the doing.
      - rco8786 4y ago
        I guess I can kind of see the point if the post is specifically about tech, but OP said "any article hosted on medium"
  - dasil003 4y ago
    I'm really torn about this because I don't think dealing with domains and web publishing is a good litmus test for who has something worthwhile to say. That said, I can't ignore the signal when it comes to tech-focused writing. For broader subjects though, I don't think tech-knowhow is better gatekeeper than traditional book or magazine publishing provided. Ultimately I think lowering the barrier for publishing is a good thing, but that comes with an inherent cost on quality and the incentives just aren't there for businesses / brands to solve this. The backstop for me is personal reputation. Individuals can maintain integrity and principles, businesses cannot (except as a function of stable individual leadership). Therefore, I believe platforms which orient towards scalability and anonymous algorithms will be a race to the bottom (eg. Medium, TikTok), and platforms which orient around the individual (eg. Substack) will at least have a chance at representing quality (monetization, scalability, VC-pressure concerns notwithstanding).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - socialdemocrat 4y ago
    I don’t get your reasoning. I have hosted my own static site for years, but I wrote primarily on Medium today because I can get paid that way. You cannot make a living writing blogs on a static site. Medium significantly improves your reach and access to statistics to understand readers better. Until Medium came around I had clue I could ever make a living as writer. A lot of us use Medium because it has solved a problem long plaguing the internet: How do you get paid for creating content? I know myself that so don’t want to sign up to one dozen places for subscription. That would be the problem hosting your own site. Few people want to have 10 different subscriptions. With medium one subscription gives access to a lot of writers.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
Concurred. Thanks for including a screenshot. I am hopeful that /u/tonystubblebine will reply to your comment, and I'm genuinely hopeful and interested in his answer because it essentially determines whether I'll open myself back up to reading and publishing on Medium.
christophilus 4y ago
When I see Medium, I think: nag banners, web fonts popping in and pushing the content around while I’m reading it, and little social things lazy loading and popping in on the side as yet another distraction. This annoys me about all sites, but I think it feels worse on Medium because I remember a time when I thought Medium was decent. The design itself still looks good, and that, too might be why the bank feels worse.
gonehome 4y ago
+1 - Medium is a damaged brand, my immediate response is a negative association. Basically the opposite of Substack.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
  +1 Yep. Damaged goods. Sorry Tony. If a medium article comes up as a link or a part of my search, that's a thing I won't be clicking.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
a1o 4y ago
> There's so much junk in the way of the content There's a lot of junk in the content too. In the software topic, I have read some articles that had interesting code by what sounded like entry-level to mid-level software engineers, and it was helpful for me when I was grasping with similar problems. But most of the senior-level author articles that are more about concepts, high-level project or organization problems and similar, most of the interesting stuff was outside of it. On medium I rarely see articles like that, what I see most are articles that try to be about that, but read like written by a non-senior author, and is sometimes buzzwordy or has no information I can extract beyond self promotion of the author.
Sophistifunk 4y ago
There's nothing lower than those asshole scripts that mess with highlighting, copying, and pasting text.
- ryantgtg 4y ago
  Agree - they may seem like minor design decisions to the visionaries at Medium, but those things alone are why I perceive Medium to be user-hostile. And they’ve had this anti-functionality for many many years. It feels like they don’t want me to be there.

by dilap 4y ago

duck 4y ago

I would say it isn't a stretch at all to say most people feel that way. I stopped including any Medium hosted articles in my HN newsletter b/c of complaints from lots of subscribers that they couldn't read them. I'll have to dig up my analysis I did last year (using BigQuery HN data), but on HN there are more Medium links than ever, but they tend not to get voted on at the same rate as older stories which tells me at least for the HN crowd it isn't worth clicking on them.

geodel 4y ago
I mean yes, I would not click on any article hosted on medium. And it is not just because of incessant login popup that many correctly noted. It is also because I feel if any individual / company can not host their articles and blogs on their own platform they are not worth reading. I dislike their reasoning on at least two counts: 1) It is too much work: In world of static site publishing and easy cloud hosting it is not too much work for technically competent person to host their own content if they have something worthwhile to say. 2) Not our core competency: Many companies or teams who say this sounds to me management style BS. If hosting few articles in your domain is beyond their competency then I can't really trust whatever cloud, big data, distributed, serverless computing they are talking about.
- rco8786 4y ago
  It’s interesting that you draw the line specifically at the software serving the post. Should the individual/company own the hardware also? The OS running on the server?
  - wyclif 4y ago
    I don't think the parent is making a point about ownership, but rather publishing. He's saying that in 2022, if you're not competent to publish yourself, it creates doubts about what you have to say about high technology.
    - biztos 4y ago
      I think it’s just the branding awareness that is suspect. You can host a WordPress site on blog.yourcompany.com for an amount that rounds to $0, and it will probably satisfy most people who dislike Medium and other aggregators. Or you can roll your own of course, but the extra geek cred you will get for it is minimal. Not saying don’t do it, I’ve done it more than once, but do it for the doing.
    - rco8786 4y ago
      I guess I can kind of see the point if the post is specifically about tech, but OP said "any article hosted on medium"
- dasil003 4y ago
  I'm really torn about this because I don't think dealing with domains and web publishing is a good litmus test for who has something worthwhile to say. That said, I can't ignore the signal when it comes to tech-focused writing. For broader subjects though, I don't think tech-knowhow is better gatekeeper than traditional book or magazine publishing provided. Ultimately I think lowering the barrier for publishing is a good thing, but that comes with an inherent cost on quality and the incentives just aren't there for businesses / brands to solve this. The backstop for me is personal reputation. Individuals can maintain integrity and principles, businesses cannot (except as a function of stable individual leadership). Therefore, I believe platforms which orient towards scalability and anonymous algorithms will be a race to the bottom (eg. Medium, TikTok), and platforms which orient around the individual (eg. Substack) will at least have a chance at representing quality (monetization, scalability, VC-pressure concerns notwithstanding).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- socialdemocrat 4y ago
  I don’t get your reasoning. I have hosted my own static site for years, but I wrote primarily on Medium today because I can get paid that way. You cannot make a living writing blogs on a static site. Medium significantly improves your reach and access to statistics to understand readers better. Until Medium came around I had clue I could ever make a living as writer. A lot of us use Medium because it has solved a problem long plaguing the internet: How do you get paid for creating content? I know myself that so don’t want to sign up to one dozen places for subscription. That would be the problem hosting your own site. Few people want to have 10 different subscriptions. With medium one subscription gives access to a lot of writers.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago

Concurred. Thanks for including a screenshot. I am hopeful that /u/tonystubblebine will reply to your comment, and I'm genuinely hopeful and interested in his answer because it essentially determines whether I'll open myself back up to reading and publishing on Medium.

christophilus 4y ago

When I see Medium, I think: nag banners, web fonts popping in and pushing the content around while I’m reading it, and little social things lazy loading and popping in on the side as yet another distraction. This annoys me about all sites, but I think it feels worse on Medium because I remember a time when I thought Medium was decent. The design itself still looks good, and that, too might be why the bank feels worse.

gonehome 4y ago

+1 - Medium is a damaged brand, my immediate response is a negative association. Basically the opposite of Substack.

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
+1 Yep. Damaged goods. Sorry Tony. If a medium article comes up as a link or a part of my search, that's a thing I won't be clicking.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

a1o 4y ago

> There's so much junk in the way of the content There's a lot of junk in the content too. In the software topic, I have read some articles that had interesting code by what sounded like entry-level to mid-level software engineers, and it was helpful for me when I was grasping with similar problems. But most of the senior-level author articles that are more about concepts, high-level project or organization problems and similar, most of the interesting stuff was outside of it. On medium I rarely see articles like that, what I see most are articles that try to be about that, but read like written by a non-senior author, and is sometimes buzzwordy or has no information I can extract beyond self promotion of the author.

Sophistifunk 4y ago

There's nothing lower than those asshole scripts that mess with highlighting, copying, and pasting text.

ryantgtg 4y ago
Agree - they may seem like minor design decisions to the visionaries at Medium, but those things alone are why I perceive Medium to be user-hostile. And they’ve had this anti-functionality for many many years. It feels like they don’t want me to be there.