Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–567 of 567 posts

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

#561

Post by pdimitar »

account42 wrote: post #553
pdimitar wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

People only view $20/mo as high because many other subs are less but when you point out to them how much money they spend on several $5/mo subs and they come over to your side.

Frankly I'd gladly pay $20 for privacy-preserving focused online service that does exactly what I want. And I believe many people would as well.

The problem as usual are others poisoning the well e.g. Netflix et. al. because they are kinda commoditized for many people at this point and they perceive them as impossible to live without.

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

#562

Post by gwbas1c »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #124
gwbas1c wrote: post #115

I remember seeing a few medium posts on Hacker News a few years ago. They all had good tone management; but when read with a critical eye, they were factually incorrect or had poor comprehension of the subject matter. It got the point where, if I saw "medium.com" next to a link I'd think, "oh, that's a medium post" and not open it. If I accidentally opened a Medium post, I'd close it immediately without reading it. "…

You aren't alone. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223222

Yeah, after looking through that thread I began to understand my frustration with Medium.com.

The problem is Medium.com lowers the barrier to entry for writing a technical blog that appears correct at a glance. The barrier to entry for operating your own blog is marginally high enough to keep out people who misunderstand core concepts in technical writing.

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

#563

Post by magusd »

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…

so, marketing did it again

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

#564

Post by gcj »

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…

What made me go away, as a reader and writer, was the paywalls. It's not a very smart idea to put a paywall over text when your business modal is providing content.

I'm sure there are better ways of monetizing it.

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

#565

Post by smsm42 »

account42 wrote: post #552
ploum wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 platf…

You are framing it as if money is the root of the problem. But it's not the case. It would be cheaper for Youtube to not ban anyone. It would be cheaper not to spend money on algorithms and people that post something they don't like. They don't make money - at least not directly - by controlling the narrative of public discussion and distorting it to their liking. They get something which is very important to somebody who already has the money - power. With power, they can ensure they keep the money, and also enjoy all the benefits of being rich and powerful. If you think getting the government to rule it would be better, you are deluded. Government is concentrated power, so it would only multiply the problems, and since the government can not be replaced by something else (at least not without very much unpleasantness and shooting and other bad things), they would have zero interest in sharing their power with anybody else. And if you think you will be able to control this power by just voting once in two years, you are double deluded.

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

#566

Post by pushkine »

hd95489 wrote: post #529
throw1230 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quora is a shithole too. I remember 5-6 years ago I hung out in Quora because it high quality content from real experts. It was really interesting. Now it's nothing. Websites (forums, mostly) have figured out they'll actually drive more traffic if they didn't have a sign-up wall. The signup requirement is myopic, some PM looking into the data and doing some math they can make more $$$ per unique visit if they make th…

I would ban quora and Pinterest from all search results if I could.

You can with the "uBlacklist" extension

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

#567

Post by tomp »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #501
tomp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

get rid of the "register wall" or you're not even trying

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, we haven't had a register wall in a long time.

I wanted to believe you, but I seem to have just run out of "free stories for this month" and hit the register wall.
Post reply on HN