4 ms·

I don't understand why people use Medium or similar gated blogging platforms. It is so easy to use Wordpress. You can get a domain name with managed wordpress i

I don't understand why people use Medium or similar gated blogging platforms. It is so easy to use Wordpress. You can get a domain name with managed wordpress install ready to roll for less than $50 a year. And you become the owner of your own publications. Or if you want to do it yourself, just install a Ghost Docker container in some spare space of that $5 Digital Ocean instance, and you are ready to go. With a $5 DO instance I've got a self hosted recipe book (RecipeSage), Bookmark Service (LinkAce), blogging platform (Ghost) and also use it as a Socks Proxy. I've got nightly backups for $1.5 and everything was as easy as docker-compose up. I understand non-technical people suffering the issues of internet deplatforming, but for a self-named "The Practical Dev" ?

MattDemers 4y ago
Substack is nice because it handles email distribution, has free podcast hosting and RSS feeds for separate "sections" of your newsletter/podcast, and handles payment stuff. I could do the same things for Wordpress, but each of those functions is likely a (premium) plugin, with its own layer of tinkering, installation, config, updates, etc. When Medium was better, it was easy to get a good domain for the same handle as your Twitter, with a good UI/readable final product. It's changed a lot since and kinda sucks now, but it's a step up from people using Pastebin as their blog.