Slow (the code sections take a while to load), annoying (the copy and paste thing again) and paywalled. I feel dirty when I accidentally click a medium.com link. I, unfairly, devalue the devs who use the platform.
Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
341–350 of 567 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s crazy to me that they seem completely blind to the root problem. When I pick a blogging platform I don’t want popups, paywalls, required logins, or anything other than the content. Medium took off because it had a simple clean UI and good posts, and seemed like the lowest friction way to blog. Now Medium has huge amounts of friction and feels like yet another business trying to pump money out of users, so Substa…
I've never used these commercial blogging platforms, so the answer to this question may be obvious. Do these platforms provide something useful compared to something like write.as which is based on an open source solution? Is their tools so much better than the open source alternatives?
It honestly seems like a lowest common denominator play. I currently subscribe to a substack and they are allergic to using a computer beyond the most rudimentary interactions - launching a web browser. (Blocked and Reported specifically)
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#343I'm Medium's current CEO as of last July. I actually pay a lot of attention to this sentiment on Hacker News. For example, I've bookmarked and often share this recent HN poll where 88% of people here think there's a negative stigma to a medium article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223222 It's sad and entirely our fault. We didn't fail but we did lose our way. Here's how I see it: 1. Lost our way on recommen…
I think these are not the main pain points. The biggest issue for me is that medium makes me feel like a cash cow. The way it wants me to pay every step of the way, the way it hijacks copy/paste to insert its own marketing. The account it wants me to create. The trackers it inserts everywhere. You missed the step of making something great that people actually feel good about paying for. The grassroots "for users by u…
> The problem with an X-views paywall is: you annoy me so much that even if there's good content behind it I'm long gone before I ever find out because you've already pushed me away.
I'm not a spiteful person in general, but I won't pay for anything that does things like this out of spite.
I just assume I'll be paywalled before clicking a Medium link, so I don't.
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#344cory 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…
It is like rocket stages or a maggot turning into a fly: each stage bootstraps the next but cannot last forever
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is literally it. Especially hijacking copy/paste, or text highlighting. It just brings the entire feeling of the place down. Imagine walking into a nice high end restaurant, and the server tries to sell you a credit card before taking your order. Would you continue going to that restaurant? That's what this sort of garbage does to my sentiment around websites that do it.
It’s crazy to me that they seem completely blind to the root problem. When I pick a blogging platform I don’t want popups, paywalls, required logins, or anything other than the content. Medium took off because it had a simple clean UI and good posts, and seemed like the lowest friction way to blog. Now Medium has huge amounts of friction and feels like yet another business trying to pump money out of users, so Substa…
Substack doesn't even support markdown yet, right ?
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, I think this deserves recognition. This is not the fake self promotion disguised as “brutal honesty” you see in the corporate word, there are actual admissions here that go beyond that, which leads even a cynic like me to take this seriously. It’s also important to understand that a lot of people will never pay for or be happy with the paywall content model, especially for articles. So even a success in this…
It is still corporate speak. He has posted similar before and been told that the paywall and forced reg is the issue. Then he comes back, doesn’t acknowledge it and gets told the same again. That is not genuine engagement.
The people who hate the paywall above all aren't customers, and frankly, being more concerned about that than whether the content behind it is worthwhile at all seems mixed up. I cant blame him for not prioritizing those things - I personally care way more about whether or not clicking a medium link is likely to lead me to something relevant, the rest can be negotiated.
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#347I'm Medium's current CEO as of last July. I actually pay a lot of attention to this sentiment on Hacker News. For example, I've bookmarked and often share this recent HN poll where 88% of people here think there's a negative stigma to a medium article. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223222 It's sad and entirely our fault. We didn't fail but we did lose our way. Here's how I see it: 1. Lost our way on recommen…
I saw you made a similar post a while back and a whole thread of people who said it was the forced registration after a few views which damaged perception. The stuff above is trivial vs that. That is by far and away your biggest issue in a community like this.
Can you expand on that? I get irritated by the paywall shit too but its hard to see how it would be reputation damaging in the same way as freeze dried fungible 'content'. The feeling that im getting is that people feel aggrieved and are saying what they think will be most effective in airing that grievance - is there something more substantial there Ive just missed?
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is still corporate speak. He has posted similar before and been told that the paywall and forced reg is the issue. Then he comes back, doesn’t acknowledge it and gets told the same again. That is not genuine engagement.
The people who hate the paywall above all aren't customers, and frankly, being more concerned about that than whether the content behind it is worthwhile at all seems mixed up. I cant blame him for not prioritizing those things - I personally care way more about whether or not clicking a medium link is likely to lead me to something relevant, the rest can be negotiated.
Maybe not customers, but still part of the audience.
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is literally it. Especially hijacking copy/paste, or text highlighting. It just brings the entire feeling of the place down. Imagine walking into a nice high end restaurant, and the server tries to sell you a credit card before taking your order. Would you continue going to that restaurant? That's what this sort of garbage does to my sentiment around websites that do it.
It’s crazy to me that they seem completely blind to the root problem. When I pick a blogging platform I don’t want popups, paywalls, required logins, or anything other than the content. Medium took off because it had a simple clean UI and good posts, and seemed like the lowest friction way to blog. Now Medium has huge amounts of friction and feels like yet another business trying to pump money out of users, so Substa…
And Substack's already starting to feel the same way; the incessant prompts to create an account and subscribe to something are the telltale first red flags heralding an intention to put monetization first and utility second.
Re: Ask HN: Why did medium.com "fail"?
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is still corporate speak. He has posted similar before and been told that the paywall and forced reg is the issue. Then he comes back, doesn’t acknowledge it and gets told the same again. That is not genuine engagement.
The people who hate the paywall above all aren't customers, and frankly, being more concerned about that than whether the content behind it is worthwhile at all seems mixed up. I cant blame him for not prioritizing those things - I personally care way more about whether or not clicking a medium link is likely to lead me to something relevant, the rest can be negotiated.
Yes, this.