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Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#61

Post by zem »

chubot wrote: post #59
zem wrote: post #25

cory doctorow has codified this precisely in his theory of "enshittification": 8 Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the…

Yes, definitely agree, and "enshittification" is a good word for something I've observed for ~25 years. Very similar to this phenomenon, in relation to imgur and so forth: https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-onli... I think that all image hosts suffer from the same sad pattern of eventual failure. That pattern is: I wouldn't place the blame squarely on the company however. It's also true that cons…

there's also this old ribbonfarm post on "the locust economy", describing that sort of consumer behaviour: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#62

Post by robotnikman »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #49
zem wrote: post #25

cory doctorow has codified this precisely in his theory of "enshittification": 8 Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the…

Are there examples of sites/platforms that are doing it "right"? (however you interpret 'right' to be, I guess). Ones that have been around for a while and haven't enshittified?

Not sure if it counts, but Steam maybe?

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#63

Post by xnx »

zem wrote: post #25

cory doctorow has codified this precisely in his theory of "enshittification": 8 Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the…

Terrific and succinct observation. How does competition not prevent this? Does lock-in prevent competition? e.g. Medium's suck-factor will always hover at the level where it's just not quite worth it to use something else if you already have many posts on Medium. New users will still pick Medium because it sucks, but is still popular/accepted.

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#64

Post by ALittleLight »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #49
zem wrote: post #25

cory doctorow has codified this precisely in his theory of "enshittification": 8 Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the…

Are there examples of sites/platforms that are doing it "right"? (however you interpret 'right' to be, I guess). Ones that have been around for a while and haven't enshittified?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#65

Post by newaccount74 »

zem wrote: post #58
flanbiscuit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there examples of sites/platforms that are doing it "right"? (however you interpret 'right' to be, I guess). Ones that have been around for a while and haven't enshittified?

hm, maybe the crowdfunding platforms like kickstarter and indiegogo? as far as I know those haven't started down the curve yet. but I would guess it's inevitable once you take vc money and are beholden to your investors to squeeze out every drop of revenue you can :( it would require a really strong mission statement baked into the company to say "we are here to provide value to our users and everything else has to c…

Kickstarter and Indiegogo have quite a few charlatans selling a tech version of snake oil, and they don't care because they get 10% (or whatever their fees are).

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#66

Post by PaulHoule »

xnx wrote: post #63
zem wrote: post #25

cory doctorow has codified this precisely in his theory of "enshittification": 8 Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the…

Terrific and succinct observation. How does competition not prevent this? Does lock-in prevent competition? e.g. Medium's suck-factor will always hover at the level where it's just not quite worth it to use something else if you already have many posts on Medium. New users will still pick Medium because it sucks, but is still popular/accepted.

The remarkable thing about Medium was that it went downhill so quickly, or, compared to other platforms like Twitter, it started trying to make money early in the process of gathering an audience, which limited it's growth.

In my mind it never had a good reputation. Successful blogging has three elements: (1) writing a lot, (2) technically running your blog, and (3) promoting your blog. In principle Medium took (2) and (3) out of your hands so you could focus on (1) but I think Medium attracted a person who was too lazy to blog before and who is interested in working on (1) as little as they are on (2) and (3).

In principle you might make some money blogging on Medium but a lot of people blog to promote themselves or their business and the registration wall reduced their reach and actually damaged their personal brand because I think a lot of people felt it was annoying to have to register to read articles on a blogging platform that is just a bit worse than the rest of the web as opposed to just a bit better. (Certainly anyone whose Medium blog posts connected with someone has received an email telling them it's a shame that a good blogger is blogging on Medium)

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#67

Post by legitster »

There are extremely low barriers to entry. Both against becoming a Medium blogger, and against companies putting together competing platforms to draw talent. So you are left with a pretty diluted pool of content.

Substack isn't a technology platform - it's a business model. They paid a bunch of well known writers a bunch of money to come to their platform and it paid off. I think they have wisely bet that there is no shortage of content on the internet, and focusing on curation is more important than access.

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#68

Post by PaulHoule »

Substack stole their thunder.

Superficially Substack looks a lot like Medium, to the point where I'd say Substack was forced to prove it was something much better than Medium from the very beginning.

Substack gets much better engagement with subscribers because each Substacker has to earn each subscription. A Substacker can get a passionate audience that rewards good writing.

Substack though has the serious problem that somebody can make their own email newsletter + credit card gateway script for $20,000 or less so the kind of person who makes $1,000,000 a year on Substack can go their own way and keep more money. Substack makes almost all their money off two handfuls of writers so having the best ones walk out is a constant threat -- they are saying "we aren't a mailing list company" and would like to have a richer engagement platform, like OnlyFans, that substackers would find harder to replicate, but it's never easy to get people who play game A interested in playing game B, and if they do play game B they are as likely to do it on a "best of breed" platform for that game.

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#69

Post by TurkishPoptart »

PaulHoule wrote: post #68

Substack stole their thunder. Superficially Substack looks a lot like Medium, to the point where I'd say Substack was forced to prove it was something much better than Medium from the very beginning. Substack gets much better engagement with subscribers because each Substacker has to earn each subscription. A Substacker can get a passionate audience that rewards good writing. Substack though has the serious problem t…

Substack has no paywalls, and Medium does. Makes sense why they took over.

Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?

#70

Post by trieste92 »

chx wrote: post #31
trieste92 wrote: post #20

- UI has progressively gotten more bloated - too many articles that read like they were written by an LLM - the service provided is easily replaceable At least substack has a niche with conservatives. Medium, not so much

That's a strange characterization because none of my substacks are anywhere near being conservative.

Substack having a notable conservative presense doesn't imply that all or even most are conservative
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