I also request free access to everyone's hard earned knowledge. I deserve it afterall because information wants to be free.
Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
31–40 of 259 posts
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#32Actually can we stop writing tutorials period. When you search for something I always get a bunch of old tutorials by people who are learning something and writing as they learn. If the official docs aren't great, contribute to them.
People like op don't want to contribute to things, they just want others do it and benefit from their time and skill for free.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#33For the past ~3 weeks Medium has blocked virtually every article I wanted to read and is asking me to pay. Most of these are programming tutorials related to some obscure Rails features. Honestly, I feel like Medium is the worse place to put your content. EDIT: For context, I don’t mind people monetizing their content, but in that case I’d rather pay them directly (like GoRails), and not a “subscription” for somethin…
Would you prefer ads or paying writers through Medium?
None. People are unwittingly sharing free content on the platform because they are not aware of the paywall.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#34For the past ~3 weeks Medium has blocked virtually every article I wanted to read and is asking me to pay. Most of these are programming tutorials related to some obscure Rails features. Honestly, I feel like Medium is the worse place to put your content. EDIT: For context, I don’t mind people monetizing their content, but in that case I’d rather pay them directly (like GoRails), and not a “subscription” for somethin…
Would you prefer ads or paying writers through Medium?
I prefer ads, but I'm one of those weirdos that doesn't see a problem with ads, and actually prefers targeted ads.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#35I find most Medium tech articles to be written poorly or outdated or written by juniors. They seem to be written by people that want to write an article just to write and article.
Ding ding ding. Medium cultivated a Google presence and is now cashing in with crap content to rival Quora.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#36I wholeheartedly agree. Medium is a cancer in the programming tutorial/article front. Unfortunately, any such platform will be in due time be trying to seek income and will transform into such an ad-powered walled garden, whatever the good intentions in the beginning may have been. What could be the solution to this?
Going back to blogging and not expecting any income for your writing, mostly.
Or just stop doing it and let people like op RTFM as we all did and are now expected to transfer knowledge for free.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#37I wholeheartedly agree. Medium is a cancer in the programming tutorial/article front. Unfortunately, any such platform will be in due time be trying to seek income and will transform into such an ad-powered walled garden, whatever the good intentions in the beginning may have been. What could be the solution to this?
They are giving free, unlimited place to host all your articles, and putting it behind a poorly implemented paywall (disable javascript for medium.com, incognito, clear cookies, proxy...Literally anything works)
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#38There's an interesting tradeoff here, to say the least. Writers want readers. So to some, it's worth sacrificing universal accessibility to gain all of the advantages Medium has to offer.
There just aren't many reasonable, free alternatives for publishing written technical. Medium handles SEO and makes it super simple writers who don't know how to host their own content otherwise to get their ideas in public. Plus, readers who click on a Medium link know they'll see their content in a standardized format.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#39Actually can we stop writing tutorials period. When you search for something I always get a bunch of old tutorials by people who are learning something and writing as they learn. If the official docs aren't great, contribute to them.
Are you genuinely arguing that the world would be a better place if there were only official docs and no tutorials?
You must have a very different experience to me. I'd say the value is about 70-30% in favour of unofficial tutorials for the tech topics I've learned over the years.
Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium
#40Medium, Twitter and other "dark pattern" companies are on my blacklist: I don't open any link that point to them. Life is slightly better this way.