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

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

#551

Post by account42 »

raincole wrote: post #319
jrumbut wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the plan from day one was make a very appealing platform at a loss, gain a moat from a huge library of good content, then squeeze the profit out of it. It's a deceptive business model, and people feel deceived and no longer want to do business with that company (surprise!).

The same logic applies to Youtube. Do you think Youtube is going to fail soon?

I'm already less likely to click Youtube links than a (usually Fediverse-hosted) webm/mp4. I think innertia will keep them going for quite a while though but hopefully more sites will start hosting their own videos. And hopefully browsers will pull their head out of their collective behinds and fix the tag so you can do statically hosted adaptive streaming without bringing your own HLS/DASH implementation.

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

#552

Post by account42 »

ploum wrote: post #487
smsm42 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it the same model? I have been watching YT videos for years and was never denied access to any content.

"This video has been removed because of youtube policies". This is the exact same thing: shitification. Make a cool product at a loss then make it shitier to use to bring as much money as you can before enough users exit to break your network effect. You can even make it last longer by making it as hard as possible for your users to leave. If the process is not entirely clear to you, look at Twitter. (Elon Musk is in…

> That’s why the only long-term sustainable solution is free software. Free software are the only software that can stay successful for several decades (sometimes without major changes in their architecture, which is awesome when you think about it).

Free software isn't enough though, we need publicly run platforms that are not driven by profit interests. I think the only way this can work long term is if those platforms are sufficiently decentralized that the damage can be "repaired" when individual instances fall.

The alternative would be government- or non-profit-run infrastructure, but I am not confident that that will hold up against money interests. See e.g. ICANN and the increasingly monetized domain name system or the sellout of Freenode how money can corrupt or take over such centralized platforms.

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

#553

Post by account42 »

pdimitar wrote: post #433
tomcam wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No argument. But how do they make money without these measures? Also Reddit has never been a huge moneymaker, the vast majority of their labor—moderators—work for nothing.

I have known dozens of people who would gladly pay $20 a month to have a platform where they can freely share their writings and discuss with like-minded people -- small clubs, if you will. Some still use Facebook and complain about limitations to this day. Though as much as I'll never like Facebook, they do a good job and have the functionality; where they lose people is starting to shove irrelevant seemingly outrag…

I was going to say that $20/mo sounds a bit high but then I remembered that I still have a $20/mo VPS for pretty much that purpose (email, small websites) and I can't can't really be bothered to downsize the server even though there is plenty of room (except disk space).

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

#555

Post by Shocka1 »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #499
martin82 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The paywall killed your product. When I google something, and it leads to Medium, and I then see that it is not accessible, I CURSE and immediately go away. Let this happen three times and in my mind it is cemented that Medium is "that shit platform that wastes my time clicking on inaccessible content" - same like Quora, by the way. As long as the paywall exists, you will not get rid of that stench. 2. Substack ki…

FWIW, the idea that Medium is progressive is kind of ridiculous if you look at the view numbers. The vast majority of people are reading about apolitical topics, namely professional development, hobbies, personal stories.

As a libertarian conservative myself, I agree with martin and mostly read Substack along with WSJ now. I'm sure your data is good enough though and it doesn't matter. Good luck :)

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

#557

Post by distances »

carlosjobim wrote: post #538
distances wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the bar is that a site has to work in incognito. That's how I open all links, so login is out of the question. Medium actually works very well that way, I didn't even know they still have the paywall -- or I might have disabled some scripts?

> For me the bar is that a site has to work in incognito. Or you'll do what?

Or I don't use the site. I make exceptions for e-mail, Hacker News, and sometimes GitHub. But not for newpapers, Google, or Facebook. And definitely not for Medium.

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

#558

Post by evilbob93 »

smsm42 wrote: post #372
inerte wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a few years ago I started to realize that if I somehow see the link pointed to "medium.com" I would just... nope. Not willing to take the gamble if I can read the page or not.

Agree, this is surprisingly annoying when you click and it tells you "nope sucker, not today, you're not getting to read something you're interested in". Why should I even bother to get my hopes up in the first place?

same with New York Times... and Wall Street Journal... and Financial Times... and The Economist... and many others. I've wondered what it would take to pre-emptively edit HN so i don't even see those links.

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

#559

Post by irvingprime »

wkat4242 wrote: post #177
tonystubblebine wrote: post #119

I'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…

+100

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

#560

Post by tmaly »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #119

I'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…

On the positive side, the mobile app was amazing for writing. I can't think of a nicer interface to write a blog post on a phone.
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