Can we all stop using Medium now? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#51

Post by NightlyDev » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

Hackbraten wrote: post #35

Please re-enable the `-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;` CSS style for your content. The article is a pain to read on Mobile Safari because bouncy/rubber-band scrolling is disabled.

That feature has serious bugs on iOS, and that's probably why it's not the default as Apple can't get it to be stable.

Don't ask him to add it, ask Apple, it's their fault. It's not a production feature.

And since it's Apple, you can't just use another browser as it's all the same crap on iOS.

You're stuck with something worse than the 2019 equivalent of IE6. iOS is a joke when it comes to web browsing.

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#52

Post by stanislavb » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

What is your best alternative? I'd say dev.to is a good one for the context of software/programming related content

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#53

Post by spyckie2 » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:55 AM UTC

Please KEEP USING medium to keep all those uninspired rants, thought leader posturing, and no substance fluff pieces on subjects that are actually interesting behind a paywall.

Please put more effort into creating better content by exhibiting interest and passion into a subject through deep exploration, insights, discussion of core issues and resolution, and great descriptive writing.

It used to be that everyone who wrote a diary had no expectations of their content being anything valuable, and the value of writing was in the exploration of ideas and organization of your thoughts. Now the value of writing is how many people you reach? Philosophically, I'm against that change, so please keep that stuff behind a paywall.

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#54

Post by jscholes » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

> If you enjoy reading on the web chances are you’ve been forced to login to Medium at some point in the last week.

I've never once logged into Medium. I see a "Pardon the Interruption" notice every time I want to read something, but I just hit Escape and move on with my day. If I had to pick a side, I'd probably say avoid Medium. But I don't know under what circumstances it forces you to log in just to read something.

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#55

Post by robjan » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

sdan wrote: post #32

_seemethere wrote: post #8

Not everyone has the time to create their own platform and curation network. That's the reason why people will keep using Medium. We need to stop acting like it's easy to build these types of platforms.

Use Ghost. It's free, given you have a server set up.

And you have just identified the reason that most people won't use it

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#56

Post by yingw787 » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:58 AM UTC

dickeytk wrote: post #42

regnerba wrote: post #7

I don't publish anything ever really so I don't understand the appeal of using Medium. Can anyone explain it to me? Is it just the ease of use? Write some text, click button, it's available online?

I used to write on medium. The editor is the best. Nothing I've used is as good. The stats are also incredibly well done. Some people are saying authors use it for the built-in audience. I can't say that was an appeal for me—or that I got very many readers from within medium anyways. I started my own blog with hugo/netlify (though notably I don't post things very often). The main reason I switched is because so many…

I’ve found the editor to not be as great when it comes to including code blocks, widgets, or other javascript I want to execute. Hugo is a lot more flexible in that sense. You can include graphviz and charts.js no problem, and keep your network request below 1mb.

On the other hand, Hugo’s quality is verrrry dependent on the theme you pick. Configs change from theme to theme. Hand rolling a theme from scratch is also a severe pain. I don’t think there are any paid themes for Hugo, and if there are I’m not sure it’s as good of an ecosystem as say Wordpress.

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#57

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, May 17, 2019, 1:58 AM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #46

Apocryphon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WordPress, Blogspot, even Xanga and LiveJournal predate Medium and didn't have to resort to subscription services.

Pretty sure all of them had subscriptions. Hell, I was a paid user of LJ until they got sold to the Russians and everyone left.

I think they had subscriptions but they were certainly far less in your face than Medium's paid content ads. I think tiered services are fine if they don't spam you about them.

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#58

Post by Hackbraten » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

NightlyDev wrote: post #51

Hackbraten wrote: post #35

Please re-enable the `-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;` CSS style for your content. The article is a pain to read on Mobile Safari because bouncy/rubber-band scrolling is disabled.

That feature has serious bugs on iOS, and that's probably why it's not the default as Apple can't get it to be stable. Don't ask him to add it, ask Apple, it's their fault. It's not a production feature. And since it's Apple, you can't just use another browser as it's all the same crap on iOS. You're stuck with something worse than the 2019 equivalent of IE6. iOS is a joke when it comes to web browsing.

Mind posting a source on the serious bugs? A Google search didn’t bring up any major issue for me.

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#59

Post by gurlic » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:02 AM UTC

mceachen wrote: post #49

gurlic wrote: post #26

I'm currently working on an alternative to Medium. So far it has all the elementary things like a working editor, notes and highlights, a decent commenting system. There are publications too, with teams, submissions etc. User profiles and publications have custom domains, custom CSS for branding. There's also a somewhat half-working Github integration for advanced writers but I'll need to work on it a fair bit to pol…

From one developer in a crowded marketplace (mine is photo management software) to another (you're describing a CMS), I'd spend some quality time researching open and closed source alternatives, and have a ready answer for how your product's features differentiate you from the crowd. Make sure you also check out WordPress, Ghost, GatsbyJS, Hugo (and then expand the search by those terms + " alternative"). Good luck!

Thank you for the advice, friend!

Re: Can we all stop using Medium now?

#60

Post by robjan » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

_seemethere wrote: post #8

Not everyone has the time to create their own platform and curation network. That's the reason why people will keep using Medium. We need to stop acting like it's easy to build these types of platforms.

I don't buy the curation argument. I see a lot of Medium articles published on Hacker Noon/Free Code Camp and then posted to Hacker News which remind me of the PHP tutorials that we always complain about.