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Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

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Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#21
post #17

If you are a builder/creator (even hobbies, with 2 users) and generate contents, please get your own domain. Either you use a service/tool or otherwise but own the content. If you use a service and is important enough, take backups. Own your content, use eveything else as tools. These days, the question I usually ask is, "Can I walk out of this and what do I have to do if I need to?"

This. I'm not sure why the hell anyone would do anything else to be honest. It has been an insane proposition putting content on something you don't control.

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Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#22

Hosting your own stuff is always the answer. And keep backups! Even something like getting some cheap hosting and spinning up a WordPress installation will work well (and is easily backed up, exported off-site etc).

It's not about hosting, it's about discovery. If no one knows your content exists, no one will read it. At least on Medium you have an opportunity to be seen. Sure, if you already have a huge online presence, then you don't need that. But starting from zero you need some way for people to find you.

You can for example use Ghost to host your content, then syndicate it to Medium. But just sticking a website on the internet is pointless if no one will see it.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#23
post #2

Medium lived long enough to become the villain. It was honestly quite the heel turn, but they’re all in. As far as I am concerned everyone should just move to substack at this point.

The problem all these sites have is that the domain starts as a signal of high quality — either because they are initially exclusive like Medium, or pay high-quality writers to move over. Over time, they regress to the mean and the domain becomes a signal of mediocrity.

I understand the need for things like substack to grow an audience, but I maintain that someone who really wants to run a blog for many years should own their audience.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#24
post #4
post #2

Medium lived long enough to become the villain. It was honestly quite the heel turn, but they’re all in. As far as I am concerned everyone should just move to substack at this point.

Why move from one corporate entity to another? Substack will end up going down the same road in time. Get your own domain, fire up a CMS and start publishing on something you control and own.

No post body was provided.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#25
post #19
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hard for non-technical people and I want to hear what they have to say. The only thing I like about twitter/facebook/medium/etc. is that I get to see what the whole world would do if they knew how to `vim index.html`. In this case, it's even harder because it's about maintaining a website synchronized with a mailing list. Make something open source and ad-free and they'd all run to it, I'm sure.

> This is hard for non-technical people and I want to hear what they have to say. I agree, so maybe we should work towards making it easier for them. I was thinking about spending my Christmas break fixing Friendica bugs, but now I'm suddenly thinking about building my own ActivityPub blogging platform (though no doubt one already exists). But of course that's not going to be enough; it needs to be trivial to deploy…

That used to be a thing they offered. A dial-up or DSL connection and like 25MB of web-hosting.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#26
post #17

If you are a builder/creator (even hobbies, with 2 users) and generate contents, please get your own domain. Either you use a service/tool or otherwise but own the content. If you use a service and is important enough, take backups. Own your content, use eveything else as tools. These days, the question I usually ask is, "Can I walk out of this and what do I have to do if I need to?"

This. I'm not sure why the hell anyone would do anything else to be honest. It has been an insane proposition putting content on something you don't control.

I agree in principle, but for people who just want to focus on their project, it’s a heavy tax to learn how domains and content and everything work.

Medium’s promise is “you focus on writing, we’ll deal with distributing.” They don’t live up to that promise in lots of ways, but it’s hard to fault someone for not wanting to deal with the tech.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#27
post #2

Medium lived long enough to become the villain. It was honestly quite the heel turn, but they’re all in. As far as I am concerned everyone should just move to substack at this point.

How long before seeing a comment like the next two paragraphs?

Substack lived long enough to become the villain. It was honestly quite the heel turn, but they’re all in.

As far as I am concerned everyone should just move to ${random_new_platform} at this point.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#28
post #17

If you are a builder/creator (even hobbies, with 2 users) and generate contents, please get your own domain. Either you use a service/tool or otherwise but own the content. If you use a service and is important enough, take backups. Own your content, use eveything else as tools. These days, the question I usually ask is, "Can I walk out of this and what do I have to do if I need to?"

This. I'm not sure why the hell anyone would do anything else to be honest. It has been an insane proposition putting content on something you don't control.

Seems an odd choice for a developer, for sure. I'm with all those who also have pointed out that self-hosting is the better route. Heck, as mentioned here, a compromise for this particular user would be to host the code on github and then use github pages for a nice companion site.

Re: Medium bans user for Chrome extension that opened articles in incognito mode

#29
post #2

Medium lived long enough to become the villain. It was honestly quite the heel turn, but they’re all in. As far as I am concerned everyone should just move to substack at this point.

We shouldn’t move to substack it’ll for sure just repeat history. Just make your own minimal site, especially if you have things worth reading and draws attention
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