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

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

#81

Post by robswc »

slymerson wrote: post #38
JohnFen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me sad. Long form content is the content I get the most value from. Short-form is largely pointless.

I agree with you, but the younger generations are going to be the "leaders" of the world and they love short form content. Everything points towards short form content being the biggest thing while long form content and text content becomes niche.

This sounds like terribly "old-fashioned" thinking... at the same time, not everything new is good. I'm afraid you're right though. Seems short form is destroying attention spans across the board. I even notice it in myself.

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

#82

Post by HelixEndeavor »

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…

https://bearblog.dev seems like a good alternative for simple, clean, good looking blogs. Prioritizes quick loading and efficient web design.

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

#83

Post by robswc »

smt88 wrote: post #40
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…

No one here hates WordPress because people use it for blogging. We hate it because other people use it as a complex, insecure, messy, un-versioned CMS that some of us had to inherit. It's perfect for blogging. It's a disaster for everything else people do with it.

Seeing what "low-code" people can accomplish with WordPress is both horrifying and amazing.

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

#84

Post by UncleOxidant »

First off, I do get recommendations from substack whenever I subscribe to a substack It gives me a recommendation list.

I'll take your question even further back: Why did Blogger drop the ball? Was it just that Google lost interest? (most likely, google loses interest pretty quickly - it's kind of an ADHD company)

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

#85

Post by bartvk »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #49
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?

Slashdot?

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

#86

Post by lemax »

jrm4 wrote: post #80

Yup. I think a better question that everyone should be asking, is -- how is Wikipedia succeeding SO IMPRESSIVELY in light of all the other failures we see and can we apply this model to other "websites, which at their essence, do nothing more than allow people to share information."

Wikipedia is not for profit, the incentives are incomparable.

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

#87

Post by reso »

Lots of answers point to the user experience of Medium becoming worse. This misses the bigger picture: the economics of free blog hosting don't work.

V1 of Medium was great because they weren't concerned with monetization. The product was built fully in the interests of the user. Once the company grew, they saw that the bottom line was not sustainable, and so started adding features that would possibly increase revenue. These features were built in the company's interest, not the user's interest, so the user experience got worse.

This isn't their fault, it's just a fact of business. People wouldn't pay enough to make the project worthwhile (either directly or indirectly in the form of ads/other monetization avenues).

Maybe Substack has found a different model that genuinely does work, or maybe they will follow a similar trajectory to Medium.

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

#88

Post by geerlingguy »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #49
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?

Craigslist

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

#89

Post by heleninboodler »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #49
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?

Bandcamp, although many are holding their breath since the Epic takeover.

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

#90

Post by reilly3000 »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #69
PaulHoule wrote: post #68

Substack stole their thunder. Superficially Substack looks a lot like Medium, to the point where I'd say Substack was forced to prove it was something much better than Medium from the very beginning. Substack gets much better engagement with subscribers because each Substacker has to earn each subscription. A Substacker can get a passionate audience that rewards good writing. Substack though has the serious problem t…

Substack has no paywalls, and Medium does. Makes sense why they took over.

Substack is literally a paywall as a service platform for indie writers.
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