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Inside Medium's Meltdown

businessinsider.com

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Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#61

Post by Bombthecat »

Baeocystin wrote: post #58
epberry wrote: post #11

I'm guessing I read several Medium articles a month. Some of them are really well produced - Transit's engineering post on beautifying their maps, Remix's post about public transportation planning and ILP, and Karpathy's post on backprop come to mind. So I hope Medium sticks around because I get a lot of value out of them. Would I pay for this value? I think I actually would, but maybe only for stories I finish and t…

Have you heard of https://blendle.com/ ? They brand themselves as 'Spotify for journalism', with a pay-per-article approach, with an instant refund if you don't like the article. I only started using them a couple of days ago, so I don't have any further useful comment, but it seems like a promising approach.

If they would be Spotify for journalism wouldn't they have a flat fee?

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#62

Post by gutigen »

epberry wrote: post #11

I'm guessing I read several Medium articles a month. Some of them are really well produced - Transit's engineering post on beautifying their maps, Remix's post about public transportation planning and ILP, and Karpathy's post on backprop come to mind. So I hope Medium sticks around because I get a lot of value out of them. Would I pay for this value? I think I actually would, but maybe only for stories I finish and t…

Medium should team up with https://brave.com, would propably we most effortless option to get some revenue.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#63

Post by gutigen »

a3n wrote: post #60
subpixel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why not put someone like a Colin Powell on a retainer" Colin Powell on retainer will make Medium money how?

As it is, I never go directly to Medium, I only read their articles when an aggregator like HN links to it. If Powell wrote for them, then some percentage of those random visits I'd go "huh. Colin Powell."

And why would anyone from HN care about Colin "War Criminal" Powell?

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#64

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

keypusher wrote: post #47

If they are going to a subscription or patronage model, they will need to cut way more jobs and costs. That type of model can work but you have to run very lean, and you might end up replacing those ad banners with ones begging for money. Organizations like NPR and Wikipedia are some of the largest to use such a model, they have the benefit of goodwill and tax breaks due to their non-profit status, and their cost str…

The model here isn't NPR or Wikipedia, it's Patreon and Twitch.

The former is traditional philanthropy, but the latter is an interactive way to support content creation. I'm not saying that those models will necessarily translate to Medium, but that certainly seems to be the idea.

I urge anyone that's curious to go give Twitch a quick look. Spend a good half hour in a few different channels. It's really interesting. Some of the streams are what you would expect: skilled gamers playing at a high level. But many of them are very creative in how the develop a community, how they interact with viewers and chat, and what sort of entertainment experience they provide. I think that most people will 'get it' if they watch for a bit. It's compelling entertainment, and lots of people are willing to throw a lot of money at it.

The point is that it's just an entirely different phenomenon from philanthropy. NPR and Wikipedia really have no place in this discussion because they are so different.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#65

Post by Baeocystin »

Bombthecat wrote: post #61
Baeocystin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of https://blendle.com/ ? They brand themselves as 'Spotify for journalism', with a pay-per-article approach, with an instant refund if you don't like the article. I only started using them a couple of days ago, so I don't have any further useful comment, but it seems like a promising approach.

If they would be Spotify for journalism wouldn't they have a flat fee?

I think it is an analogy (pick whatever you want from whichever supplier you want, without having to sub to them individually) more than an exact duplication.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#66

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

pryelluw wrote: post #48

I feel medium would have a chance if they allowed video and audio content to be published there. They already have the users that produce such content. Imagine it like a youtube/soundcloud for adults (I don't mean pornographic content). They could then sell many products and services around it.

First, I'd love for Youtube to see more competition.

But, honestly what Youtube are you using? Despite the glut of kid-oriented content on the site, I see almost none of it. The hobby scene alone is a huge segment of the site and caters more to the 30-60 bracket than any other.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#67

Post by detaro »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #66
pryelluw wrote: post #48

I feel medium would have a chance if they allowed video and audio content to be published there. They already have the users that produce such content. Imagine it like a youtube/soundcloud for adults (I don't mean pornographic content). They could then sell many products and services around it.

First, I'd love for Youtube to see more competition. But, honestly what Youtube are you using? Despite the glut of kid-oriented content on the site, I see almost none of it. The hobby scene alone is a huge segment of the site and caters more to the 30-60 bracket than any other.

Before you find "your corner" of YouTube it looks pretty bad. I get slightly annoyed/confused every time I see the front page without being logged in.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#68

Post by chipotle_coyote »

ghaff wrote: post #23
Thaxll wrote: post #5

I mean what Medium is beside a glorified Wordpress? I still don't understand how very simple business like that can raise hundred of millions...

Probably more accurate to say that Medium is a glorified Blogger. I'd argue that the two are better at different things and I sometimes cross-post from Blogger to Medium. But what I find a bit silly is that Medium often gets held up as a journalistic enterprise when it's just a publishing platform, albeit a nice one.

The linked article answers why Medium sometimes gets held up as a journalistic enterprise--at some points, as they've flailed around for business models, they've directly paid writers and editors for content, and at other points they've courted other publications to either move to Medium wholesale or provide exclusive content for them. WordPress sees their technology platform as the core of their business. Medium seems to see their technology platform as a means to an end; they just can't figure out what that end is.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#69

Post by elcapitan »

kartickv wrote: post #30

I wanted to create a Medium account but decided otherwise, because of Medium's terrible UX: - Images sometimes don't load, showing a swathe of a single color. In India, latency is much higher than the US, so I open multiple tabs, and start reading only when it finishes loading. Anyone who's trying to optimise should first make sure they don't mess up what has been working for two decades. - I read an interesting blog…

> In India, latency is much higher than the US, so I open multiple tabs, and start reading only when it finishes loading.

I save almost all Medium posts to Instapaper and read them there, for the same reason, and because it makes it much easier to read.

Re: Inside Medium's Meltdown

#70

Post by puranjay »

> "It comes down to how dysfunctional the place was,"

I'm not an insider by any means, but right from the early days of Twitter, I'd heard this word - dysfunctional - to describe Twitter a lot too. All those "fail whales" and strange and sometimes sheer dickish moves (like pulling API access to developers) were just inexplicable.

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