Medium asks $5 a month for nothing • Hacker News Board

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#51

Post by reggieband » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:16 PM UTC

I think the register makes some excellent points and I don't immediately see anything I disagree with ... but ...

The last few years have re-arranged my expectations. If you had told me an instant messaging platform like What's App would get acquired for billions I would have laughed. ICQ, AOL Messenger MSN Messenger, etc. had already come and gone. If you had told me one of the hottest IPOs in 2017 would be based on a photo-sharing app, one that doesn't even persist photos for very log, I would have laughed. If someone had sat me down in 2007 and said Flickr would be overshadowed by SnapChat I don't think I would have believed it.

So yeah, I get that blogs have been done and they mostly faded away to "journalism lite". But I get the feeling we'll see a few more whacks at that piñata before the candy comes out.

Maybe Q&A sites will also make a comeback? Quora and stackexchnage haven't seen the kind of growth that creates industries

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#52

Post by bachmeier » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:17 PM UTC

snackai wrote: post #10

eloisant wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a blogging platform. Why posts hosted there should be any less interesting than posts hosted on any other platform?

For some odd reason medium attracts the worst content. All those super optimistic shallow nonsense. Urgh.

Yep. Although I've read a few good posts on Medium, most of the content feels like something you'd find in popular business books. The design of the site seems to discourage anything with a technical/academic/deep thinking side. I've been wanting to post there, but I don't have anything to say that would be a good fit.

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#53

Post by darpa_escapee » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:18 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #39

sparkzilla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Medium and most other sites-in-search-of-a-business-model (including the Register) think that content is king, and that by producing 'better' content will create more revenue. In fact, distribution is king, and getting more distribution -- independent of the content -- is the key to success. Consider a site with high distribution and crap content: It's already making money and can always improve the content. A…

>>> A site with no distribution can't make money even if it improves its content. Inaccurate. Good content can and will self distribute. You're on the internet, your content is instantly automatically available to 1 billion people. Search engine are incredibly good at discovering niche/targeted content, a good article will be top page in a few weeks even if you have zero reader (well, until then). And good articles c…

How can you say

> Inaccurate. Good content can and will self distribute.

And follow it up with

> You're on the internet

My experience on the internet is much different than yours.

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#54

Post by montycantsin » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

Zwitty wrote: post #33

montycantsin wrote: post #27

Donations aren't really anything new. "Pure Silicon Valley" is thinking that all transactions need to be for something. Unrelated to that, Medium doesn't even work in Safari on the latest macOS, so it's hard to call it anything more than a shitshow.

Safari is the new IE

If they didn't support IE, that would be fairly damning as well.

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#55

Post by hdra » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

good_vibes wrote: post #20

snackai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some odd reason medium attracts the worst content. All those super optimistic shallow nonsense. Urgh.

Why do you think that is? Is it something about our times, people in general, or having nothing better to say?

I don't think thats necessarily true, but I also think that Medium has that kind of connotation for me.

I think the lack of branding on Medium sites has something to do with it. People ended up lumping everything as "Medium articles", from spammy "growth-hacking" articles to well-researched, well written investigative article.

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#56

Post by ttd » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:24 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #44

z3t4 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could easy have a web server with thousands of visitors running on a rasbery pi. i would say a week end project to set it up or one hour if you already are familiar with web servers.

Your raspbeery will be crushed to death when the article will go on the first page of HN. You seriously overestimate the capabilities of a raspberry and undestimate the traffic you get.

I'm curious about this. If you have a purely static site, what would be the major bottleneck for a front-page-reaching site hosted on a raspberry pi? I'm thinking things like compression would eat up a lot of its CPU, but you seem to know more about this than me.

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#57

Post by neotek » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

Putting aside the many arguments regarding Medium's direction and quality, the headline is thoroughly inaccurate since you do, in fact, get something for your membership: an offline reading list, early access to new Medium features, and "exclusive stories from top writers" (although the snakey wording on that one doesn't actually say whether that access is exclusive to you or exclusive to Medium.)

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#58

Post by tmaly » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:31 PM UTC

I look at medium as a networked wordpress. That has some nice benefits, but I am not paying $5 for something I do not control 100%

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#59

Post by 67726e » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:33 PM UTC

code4tee wrote: post #42

If Medium was 5 people in a basement I'd forgive them for not quite having a business model sorted out yet. What I fail to understand is how something like Medium turns into a bloated ~150 person company that's burning VC cash like crazy with no clear path towards becoming an actual business that makes decent revenue, let alone profit. Whether it's a bubble or not is semantics but it's these sorts of 'companies' that…

IIRC, Trello had plenty of folks wanting to pay money to support them. They ended up releasing a paid plan, which I think gave you stickers? I suppose you're right, they should have some kind of offer, but then again I'm sure there are folks that are more than willing to pay for what they're getting already.

Re: Medium asks $5 a month for nothing

#60

Post by BillFranklin » Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 1:35 PM UTC

code4tee wrote: post #42

If Medium was 5 people in a basement I'd forgive them for not quite having a business model sorted out yet. What I fail to understand is how something like Medium turns into a bloated ~150 person company that's burning VC cash like crazy with no clear path towards becoming an actual business that makes decent revenue, let alone profit. Whether it's a bubble or not is semantics but it's these sorts of 'companies' that…

They burn $50m per year and have 60m readers

They need 1.4% of readers to subscribe

They charge 1/3 what the NYTimes does. The NYTimes company has +$1bn revenues.

They can probably get 1.4% of readers to subscribe. They could also charge subscriptions for blogger tools. They could have tiered subscriptions ($5 is the lowest guardian membership, and it looks like you get little for it). They have only just started offering subscriptions so I imagine what you get for $5 will only grow.

150 people really isn't bloat. Stack overflow has 250 employees and I bet you never paid them a penny. SO have VC funding to series D and they have fewer users and readers than Medium.

It seems that Medium has a viable business model: ads and subscriptions. Same as any other media business.