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

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

#41

Post by minimaxir »

joelrunyon wrote: post #37

Not sure what HN has against wordpress, but it's still the GOAT in terms of blogging platforms. It's 1) Easy to setup 2) Incredibly SEO friendly 3) Most importantly: you own your content. Yes - it's not as technically advanced as engineers would like - but let's be real - it's a blog - not a venture funded startup. Buy your own domain. Own your content. Then, just write. If you need help, you can even get it set up f…

Self-promotion spam aside, all of those points are stronger arguments for static site genetation like with Jekyll or Hugo. There, the site is faster and you don't have to pay much hosting fees if any.

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

#43

Post by idlewords »

The short answer is that the founder is an introverted guy who sort of weathervanes around when it comes to his vision for the product, he had enough prior success to get lots of funding for his project, and there was no one with enough authority to say "no" to his shifting ideas or replace him with a more effective boss.

You see this pattern a lot with successful people. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a brilliant guy, but his later books are unreadable because he won't consent to have an editor. Your favorite band takes five years to release a follow-up to their breakthrough album. Pundits get a sinecure at a major news outlet on the strength of their insightful thinking and then start producing drivel.

Ev Williams had the misfortune of being given a limitless budget and the freedom to realize his vision. Medium with three developers and a half million dollar budget might have been unstoppable.

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

#44

Post by dark__paladin »

michaelhoffman wrote: post #15

I used to host my blog on Medium because it was the easiest way to get a simple, attractive blog available with a minimum amount of work. Then they started adding various annoyances, which I'm sure they thought would help with financial goals, but it eliminated the "simple, attractive" part. As a reader, seeing that a link went to medium.com used to mean it was easy-to-read and text-focused, and afterwards, it meant…

Where did you move to? Self hosting?

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

#46

Post by slymerson »

JohnFen wrote: post #24

I don't know in the big picture. Here's my personal experience, though. I never really thought that Medium was an attractive place. It had so many annoyances about it that I didn't develop a regular habit of going there. Then, at some point, it became even worse with paywalling and other additional irritations. I rarely even follow links to Medium anymore. The actual writing quality was OK at first, but it also plumm…

interesting. i wish there was a social blogging platform that had interesting posts to learn about things, and a way to compensate writers without ruining the whole experience.

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

#47

Post by slymerson »

michaelteter wrote: post #36

It got stuffed full of low quality content, much of which felt like assignments from developer boot-camp students... and then the paywall arrived. So paying (or registering) for access to view content which was likely to be fluff wasn't attractive. There was definitely some valuable content on Medium, but it was lost in a sea of noise.

i only see posts from freecodecamp and other organizations now, it sucks. medium back in the day had some great posts.

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

#49

Post by flanbiscuit »

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?

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

#50

Post by mistrial9 »

jyriand wrote: post #6

Because writers have to write for the lowest denominator. edit: spelling

no -- in previous eras, the brand name of the publication built expectation from the readers. If you want long form, high brow content then you look for it; if you are browsing for entertainment and not an intellectual, then ad-filled publications are pushed at you.. lots in between with topic-focused publications. The magazine rack of 1984 has not been replaced and readers are suffering for it... IMO
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