Medium is a poor choice for blogging • Hacker News Board

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#51

Post by almostarockstar » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #37

ddevault wrote: post #11

So why the hell did you use it to write this article, then? I wrote a tool which converts your Medium blog into a Jekyll blog, for publishers hoping to migrate: https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/unmediumify

Because it's not just a platform, it's an audience. If you want to reach the audience, you have to use the platform. And the audience most in need of this message are definitely the people publishing on Medium.

Are you referring to platform generated content? The thing is, Medium doesn't do very well at that either.

I have a medium blog. I've had a few posts got >10k reads within a month. Almost none of those reads came from Medium itself, but rather from the various outlets that have linked to my post, and Google.

The only reason I currently use Medium is that people are more likely to open a Medium url when it shows up in link aggregators. People trust the familiar url far more than www.mypersonalblog.me - and it'll never get blacklisted / shadowbanned on reddit.

Oh, and claps. I like the claps.

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#52

Post by sodosopa » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

tpaschalis wrote: post #33

It's funny, because some years ago when Medium blogs were starting to be posted left and right, people were praising the interface, and nobody listened to the few who objected. Now, we need all kinds of tricks, add-ons and blocks to just read five-minute posts during our commute. It's 2018, and there are a gazillion ways to get yourself in control of your stuff. The next free framework that comes, which promises a cl…

I use Jekyll and Forestry.io for my site but I’m also realistic and know that solution is a little too complicated for a lot of WordPress and Tumblr folks. The uptake in these tools are because of their simplicity, which honestly the design patterns haven’t changed in almost 20 years.

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#53

Post by yitianjian » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:10 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #47

joeax wrote: post #42

This is an on-point rant, but what alternatives are there that combine clean, useful publishing tools with the ability to reach a wide audience? Sure I can host my own blog, but what good is it if I have no reader engagement. If there is a decent replacement, I'm all ears.

What does Medium do for engagement that ye olde static site doesn't do? Is this something that can be done outside Medium?

Users actually discover/browse Medium, and will hit content that isn't directly searched through their explore features/algorithms. Hosting your own site means relying on cross-posting/SEO/etc.

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#54

Post by whitexn--g28h » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:10 PM UTC

wongmjane wrote: post #7

Disabling JavaScript and cookies for medium.com domain, and a bunch of uBlock rules [1] should do the job [1] Here's mine: medium.com##.metabar medium.com##.js-stickyFooter medium.com##.js-postAttributionFooterContainer medium.com##.js-postActionsFooter .buttonSet medium.com##.button--follow

As I was reading I noticed that none of the complaints appear for me. uBlock Origin and uMatrix block all of it.

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#55

Post by andrey-p » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

harveylord wrote: post #10

bko wrote: post #6

Pretty convincing. I didn't notice how bad medium was since I'm always logged in and have an ad-blocker. I also don't think they do much in terms of discovery. My blog [0] has about 370 followers and my posts only get about 10 - 20 views unless I put them on social media. Then they'll get between 100 and 10k+. Does anyone have experience with an alternative platform? Preferably free and hosted. [0] https://medium.com…

There is a freemium service called Write.as [0]. It might not be the exactly same kind of thing as Medium, but, personally, I appreciate its ultra-simplicity. Since I have never went as far as starting my own blog, I occasionally host text content there that I want to share. [0] www.write.as

The underlying engine just got open sourced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18432327

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#56

Post by ar-jan » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:12 PM UTC

davefp wrote: post #30

bko wrote: post #6

Pretty convincing. I didn't notice how bad medium was since I'm always logged in and have an ad-blocker. I also don't think they do much in terms of discovery. My blog [0] has about 370 followers and my posts only get about 10 - 20 views unless I put them on social media. Then they'll get between 100 and 10k+. Does anyone have experience with an alternative platform? Preferably free and hosted. [0] https://medium.com…

I recently started a blog built with Hugo and published using Netlify by way of a private git repo on Gitlab.com. I would have used Gitlab pages but there is not support for automated SSL certs for custom domains. You have to upload your own manually which doesn't play nice with letsencrypt's 90-day expiry.

Or use a Cloudflare certificate (valid 15 years iirc).

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#57

Post by alan_wade » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

What would it take for another platform to take over? What features would it need, in your opinion? How would it be promoted and monetized?

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#58

Post by citilife » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

"Hosting" your own blog takes around an hour of setup for wordpress or github pages. Personally, I use vultr + wordpress for my blog[1], but I have technical expertise - it took only 30 minutes to setup and transfer from my previous provider.

Reason I like to host my own, is I control the content, the popups, the UI, etc. If you care about that, host it yourself. Medium is there to make money, we can't fault them for attempting to collect for their service.

[1] https://austingwalters.com/

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#59

Post by MisterOctober » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

Yep -- I was a paid Medium subscriber / user for most of this year. Discontinued last month for many of the reasons already cited. In particular for me, the content creation interface is absolutely horrible [even worse in the iOS version] and it's a chore to get anything done using it. Clearly the guiding UX principles were aesthetic rather than usability-oriented.

Re: Medium is a poor choice for blogging

#60

Post by dmitriid » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

hobbescotch wrote: post #35

RobGav wrote: post #9

Best alternative are static generators like Jekyll or static CMS like Publii https://getpublii.com

Isn’t the main draw of medium the discussion? Static sites by their nature aren’t built for discussion considering the lack of a real database. Of course you could add a third party commenting system like discus, but then you relying on a third party service for comments and all the privacy and support concerns that come from that.

Even though it’s the draw, Medium has gone out of its way to make discussions a horrible experience: hiding them, breaking mouse interactions, promoting discussions out of context, losing scroll positions etc.