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What is the value that Medium brings to article writers? Exposure? Or most are using it just because they don't want to setup their own blog?

by XCSme 4y ago

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
No idea why anyone would want their writing behind the obnoxious onboarding dialogs Medium has from the reader side.
- XCSme 4y ago
  I never published on Medium, but one of the benefit that I thought it provided was that it also works as a discoverability platform, so your articles get promoted/pushed to people browsing Medium?
  - rideontime 4y ago
    Who "browses" Medium?
erellsworth 4y ago
I used to publish on Medium. The draw was definitely discoverability. A writer with no following could get their stories added to a Medium publication that had a large following, and build an audience. It was effective. I went from no followers to over 1k in just a few months, and I wasn't even posting that much. When they switched to the paid member model, you could even make a little money off it. However as time went on Medium started implementing the tyranny of the algorithm, pushing their own recommendations over the stuff you actually subscribed to. Writers, of course, started writing for the algorithm and the quality of stories I was seeing started on a downward spiral. At the same time, for me at least, it became harder and harder to get eyes on my work, which was the only reason to be there in the first place.
- XCSme 4y ago
  But for blogging it makes more sense to have those sort of platforms link to external blogs/pages. With YouTube it makes sense, because hosting your own 4k videos and distributing them across the globe is not easy, but with text/blog, it makes more sense to have a directory for (external) blog posts then posting your original content directly on 3rd party website.
  - erellsworth 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. It what sense would a directory of blogs be comparable to Medium? Yes, it's easier to setup a blog for yourself than to host and distribute 4k videos. But the principle is the same. Assume you had the knowledge to self-host your own 4k videos, and assume cost didn't matter to you. You would still have a strong incentive to post your videos to YouTube because that's where the viewers are. The same thing goes for Medium. You can find readers there. That's the draw. Also, Medium had (still has?) a feature where you could import your blog posts from your own site, and it would apply the proper canonical link tag for SEO. If nothing else, it's an easy way to get a backlink, though I don't know how much those matter anymore.

What is the value that Medium brings to article writers? Exposure? Or most are using it just because they don't want to setup their own blog?

by XCSme 4y ago

What is the value that Medium brings to article writers? Exposure? Or most are using it just because they don't want to setup their own blog?

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

No idea why anyone would want their writing behind the obnoxious onboarding dialogs Medium has from the reader side.

XCSme 4y ago
I never published on Medium, but one of the benefit that I thought it provided was that it also works as a discoverability platform, so your articles get promoted/pushed to people browsing Medium?
- rideontime 4y ago
  Who "browses" Medium?

erellsworth 4y ago

I used to publish on Medium. The draw was definitely discoverability. A writer with no following could get their stories added to a Medium publication that had a large following, and build an audience. It was effective. I went from no followers to over 1k in just a few months, and I wasn't even posting that much. When they switched to the paid member model, you could even make a little money off it. However as time went on Medium started implementing the tyranny of the algorithm, pushing their own recommendations over the stuff you actually subscribed to. Writers, of course, started writing for the algorithm and the quality of stories I was seeing started on a downward spiral. At the same time, for me at least, it became harder and harder to get eyes on my work, which was the only reason to be there in the first place.

XCSme 4y ago
But for blogging it makes more sense to have those sort of platforms link to external blogs/pages. With YouTube it makes sense, because hosting your own 4k videos and distributing them across the globe is not easy, but with text/blog, it makes more sense to have a directory for (external) blog posts then posting your original content directly on 3rd party website.
- erellsworth 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. It what sense would a directory of blogs be comparable to Medium? Yes, it's easier to setup a blog for yourself than to host and distribute 4k videos. But the principle is the same. Assume you had the knowledge to self-host your own 4k videos, and assume cost didn't matter to you. You would still have a strong incentive to post your videos to YouTube because that's where the viewers are. The same thing goes for Medium. You can find readers there. That's the draw. Also, Medium had (still has?) a feature where you could import your blog posts from your own site, and it would apply the proper canonical link tag for SEO. If nothing else, it's an easy way to get a backlink, though I don't know how much those matter anymore.