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Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

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Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#151

Post by yters »

andybak wrote: post #41
yters wrote: post #31

I also request free access to everyone's hard earned knowledge. I deserve it afterall because information wants to be free.

Most people started writing on Medium before the payway and probably would reconsider if they realised the current impact on potential readers. In addition - does anyone make money worth mentioning from Medium? I thought they were the Spotify of blog payouts. We're funding them, not the writers.

would their articles get much readership without medium? build it and they will come only works if people know about the thing

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#152

Post by bichiliad »

As someone who used to run a WordPress blog as a kid and taking a long hiatus from blogging, I'm really happy about all the options there are today. I spun up a blog using 11ty and netlify, and it was just as easy as all the blog posts about them say it would be. I don't think there's a better time to try to self-host a blog if you are at all inclined. I've also been excited about Dev.to (although I haven't dug too deep into it).

* Shameless plug: my blog lives at salem.io, and I'm more than happy to answer blog-related questions (or any other, honestly) if you're interested in starting but need a little push. My email is in my profile.

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#153

Post by bichiliad »

Zelphyr wrote: post #49

Medium is not StackOverflow Maybe StackOverflow should add a Medium-like product where people can write tutorials?

They do give you the ability to post an answer along with your question. I've found that particularly useful in the private Stack Overflow instance my company uses.

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#154

Post by ddevault »

coldcode wrote: post #65
ddevault wrote: post #11

More than just considering the reader's interests, it's also against the author's interests to use Medium. They've become more and more draconian, bloated, and, well, the same as any other venture capitalist ultra-growth-oriented company. The chickens will come home to roost, and if your content and your audience is on Medium, moving them elsewhere is going to become increasingly difficult over time. Ability to expor…

Hardly anyone will find it. Writing for 10 people is not very interesting at all. I want a Medium that charges me to write, but anyone can read for free. I pay DO $5 a month to host something, why should I not be willing to gain a benefit of a medium with large SEO and strength in numbers, and pay that $5 a month, but still allow people to read for nothing? But no one wants to pay to read or write so you go alone and…

Google does not ignore your website, what nonsense. I have always posted on my own domain and I have a strong readership. RSS exists, link aggregators exist (how did you find this article? On HN!), it's not all glum and woe.

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#155

Post by CarelessExpert »

dhimes wrote: post #146
CarelessExpert wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter? Reddit? Hacker News? Are you really trying to make the case that Medium is the only way people find and read content?

Nope. I'm just wondering what the sentiment is. I've obviously struck a nerve. "Oh no paywall!" for a site that pays its authors. Now, if it ripped the authors off or engaged in other shitty tactics, then that's one thing. But nobody is responding with that kind of information. It's all a response against the paywalls, and I'm trying to figure out if it's knee-jerk or not. I mean, aren't people allowed to make a livi…

> I mean, aren't people allowed to make a living by teaching others?

Absolutely good point!

I think if I were to rephrase the submitter's comment in a way that aligned with my own views and concerns, it would be:

If your intent is to put information into the world for others to share purely out of charity/a desire to help others, or to get your name out, please consider options other than Medium, as Medium is ultimately in control if whether anyone can actually gain access to the content you've produced.

If, however, as you say, one's goal is to produce and monetize content as part of a personal revenue stream, then Medium seems like as good an option as any (though, personally, I'm not a huge fan of contributing content into walled garden ecosystems where the publisher can unilaterally change the rules on a whim), and folks here complaining that stuff is behind a paywall should go find free content elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#156

Post by franzwong »

x87678r wrote: post #20

Actually 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.

The major audience of my tutorial is myself. People have different learning styles. I like to go straight to the code first and learn the concept from there. Some people like to do that in a reverse way.

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#159

Post by andybak »

yters wrote: post #151
andybak wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people started writing on Medium before the payway and probably would reconsider if they realised the current impact on potential readers. In addition - does anyone make money worth mentioning from Medium? I thought they were the Spotify of blog payouts. We're funding them, not the writers.

would their articles get much readership without medium? build it and they will come only works if people know about the thing

We seemed to manage quite well before Medium. It's not a portal in the sense that YouTube is. I got to YouTube to find content. I end up on Medium because I found content via some other means.

Re: Ask HN: Please stop writing tutorials/tech articles on Medium

#160

Post by dietrichepp »

Personal websites are great and I’ve been trying to put more content on my own personal website (I made nine decent-size posts this month, and I’m happy with that). HOWEVER,

Running a personal website is a time sink and it can become a real pain as time goes on. It’s not a problem to create a personal website and shove a few HTML files on there, or set up a Wordpress installation, or create something with Jekyll. That’s easy enough.

The problem is that 10 years later, your HTML files are sprawling, or you rely on Wordpress plugins that are no longer maintained, or you’re fighting against your generator for whatever reason.

I’ve somehow managed to get my personal website into a state where posting a new article is little more than adding a file to a Git repo and then running a command to deploy it, but I always feel like I need to modify the scripts, and I always want to revisit choices I made when building the website.

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