Ask HN: Why are people publishing FAQs/articles on Medium instead of Gist?
44 comments
I absolutely detest finding Medium articles in search results. Often they contain good knowledge which confuses me even more.
For anyone unaware - it seems a lot of people must be, otherwise I don't understand why anyone would choose to publish there - this is the flow for most users trying to read your articles:
- See a Google search result that goes to Medium
- Click the link and start reading
- Read the first two paragraphs, then see a popup saying you need to login to continue reading for free (the rest of the page isn't rendered, so you can't just block it with adblock)
- Reluctantly decide to login, waiting a few minutes for the email link to click on to do so
- Log in, then have to navigate your history back to the article, as they take you to a different page
- Start reading again, and after the first two paragraphs get a popup saying you need to pay $5/mo to see the rest of the article
- Rage quit your job and go live in the forest
I understand there are ways around the paywall, but that's not what most users are going to do.
For anyone unaware - it seems a lot of people must be, otherwise I don't understand why anyone would choose to publish there - this is the flow for most users trying to read your articles:
- See a Google search result that goes to Medium
- Click the link and start reading
- Read the first two paragraphs, then see a popup saying you need to login to continue reading for free (the rest of the page isn't rendered, so you can't just block it with adblock)
- Reluctantly decide to login, waiting a few minutes for the email link to click on to do so
- Log in, then have to navigate your history back to the article, as they take you to a different page
- Start reading again, and after the first two paragraphs get a popup saying you need to pay $5/mo to see the rest of the article
- Rage quit your job and go live in the forest
I understand there are ways around the paywall, but that's not what most users are going to do.
Have you tried accessing a Medium link in Incognito mode?
That's a workaround for a terrible user experience. The fact that you need to suggest that at all is telling. Wait until they start blocking private session users like some news papers...
They used to do this at some point. I remember medium telling me I could not proceed in incognito. I wonder why they rolled that back.
I don’t login. I just skip the article.
Personally, I dislike how Gists are so isolated. I just created a public test Gist and can’t seem to find a way to navigate to it when I view my GitHub profile from a private browser session. From my Gists profile there is a “View GitHub Profile” button, but I do not see a button to do the reverse.
I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure.
Additionally, I think that edits to a Gist should count as contributions. The current arrangement disincentives those who are concerned with contribution counts.
I think adding a “Gists” tab to GitHub profiles would be a nice way to increase accessibility and exposure.
Additionally, I think that edits to a Gist should count as contributions. The current arrangement disincentives those who are concerned with contribution counts.
Searching your own gists is harder than search for a public one. I think it might be easier to make a gist repo and use comments for gists or the inline editor.
I know the gh cli tool helped me find some stuff a lot easier than pointy-clicky through the UI. Maybe it would work for this use case?
TiL, will check it out
Great suggestion!
USAGE gh gist <command> [flags]
CORE COMMANDS create: Create a new gist delete: Delete a gist edit: Edit one of your gists list: List your gists view: View a gist
USAGE gh gist <command> [flags]
CORE COMMANDS create: Create a new gist delete: Delete a gist edit: Edit one of your gists list: List your gists view: View a gist
Agreed. That's where I was hoping Obsidian would be helpful in terms of providing a way to tag/index individual gists.
I agree that there is a disconnect between Github repos and Gists. Unifying them with Github profiles would probably increase both the visibility and adoption (particularly if they were listed with your repos).
Protip: Copy the link of any blog post written ontop of the medium platform and send it to yourself as a dm over twitter.
Unlimited access to articles & acts as a nice repo of the things you read.
This works because twitter owns medium and uses a special link shortener afaik. I'm guessing there is also a 3rd party website that will do this for you.
Unlimited access to articles & acts as a nice repo of the things you read.
This works because twitter owns medium and uses a special link shortener afaik. I'm guessing there is also a 3rd party website that will do this for you.
Great tip, but just fyi, Medium is not owned by Twitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_(website)
+1, same founder tho
I post on https://dev.to
Gist is not very good for publishing articles in my eyes
Gist is not very good for publishing articles in my eyes
I was interested in this but my first thought was "what happens the day that dev.to gets monetized ?" and my second one was "who owns dev.to ?".
WRT the first one "Yes, you own the rights to the content you create and post on dev.to and you have the full authority to post, edit, and remove your content as you see fit." which on the surface seems a lot better than many crowd contributer situations.
WRT the second one I still don't know and if there's a wikipedia page for dev.to I can't find it.
On the whole dev.to seems better than medium, for now at least, and more approachable than using gists.
WRT the first one "Yes, you own the rights to the content you create and post on dev.to and you have the full authority to post, edit, and remove your content as you see fit." which on the surface seems a lot better than many crowd contributer situations.
WRT the second one I still don't know and if there's a wikipedia page for dev.to I can't find it.
On the whole dev.to seems better than medium, for now at least, and more approachable than using gists.
Actually this https://dev.to/about describes the "leadership" although it doesn't say straight out who owns it.
But dev.to already is monetized? They are not a charity. They are open source a d make money with job postings, sponsorships and sponsored posts.
Yes, from membership, shops and sponsorship. DEV.to are selling nice stuffs btw.
Better yet, post to your own blog and have it get automatically added to dev.to.
If the goal of a blog is to get people to know you better, not just share knowledge, then gist isn’t a great platform for that. People would rather have a blog with clearer branding and personality, that promises more polish, and an offers to give you many ways to get to know the blogger.
I use gist for informal things I don’t have time to turn into a great blog article yet. Or half constructed notes that can live in a pastebin.
I guess I’m curious why medium is the only alternate you list to gist as opposed to creating your own blog outside of medium?
I use gist for informal things I don’t have time to turn into a great blog article yet. Or half constructed notes that can live in a pastebin.
I guess I’m curious why medium is the only alternate you list to gist as opposed to creating your own blog outside of medium?
Mostly a question of simplicity. I don't want to spend a tonne of time maintaining a personal blog site if I can find a quick way to publish material quickly using gists with an editor (like Obsidian) which is tolerable ;-).
I've used Jekyll before on github.io, but am looking for an even lighter-weight solution (if possible).
I've used Jekyll before on github.io, but am looking for an even lighter-weight solution (if possible).
I was asking a similar question for numerous use cases (e.g. code snippets, book reviews, notes). Gists are so broadly useful, but relatively few developers actually use them. Personally, I found that incorporating gists into my daily workflow just wasn’t very convenient, and so I ended up creating a VS Code extension that allowed me to create, edit, and comment on gists within the editor: https://aka.ms/gistpad.
I’m not sure if ease-of-use is a reason for others to not use gists more frequently, but I’ve definitely become a bit of a gists “advocate”, after appreciating just how useful/flexible it is as a “developer cloud storage” solution.
I’m not sure if ease-of-use is a reason for others to not use gists more frequently, but I’ve definitely become a bit of a gists “advocate”, after appreciating just how useful/flexible it is as a “developer cloud storage” solution.
I use Obsidian and want to incorporate it in with my Gist usage. Found this which might be helpful: https://github.com/defunkt/gist
P.S. My biggest peeve with Gist is the missing dark mode :(. Otherwise, I find that the ability to use Markdown and embedded images in my gist's actually covers most of my documenting/blogging use case. Obsidian will hopefully address the dark mode issue.
P.S. My biggest peeve with Gist is the missing dark mode :(. Otherwise, I find that the ability to use Markdown and embedded images in my gist's actually covers most of my documenting/blogging use case. Obsidian will hopefully address the dark mode issue.
I like gists and I have used them for years for my (non-medium) blog. I usually break down whatever I am explaining piece by piece and then include a link to a gist with the complete code for the reader.
Interesting. So how do you decide what to publish on Medium? Is it simply a distinction between `blog` content vs. technical docs, or something else?
I don't use medium. My blog is self hosted and if I am breaking down some code I usually include a gist with the complete code.
I agree, a git repo would be a good place. Another option if you are just creating a blog is NeoCities [1]
[1] - https://neocities.org/
[1] - https://neocities.org/
Medium allows you to set a canonical tag, so authors can direct SEO juice towards their own websites. Github/gist doesn't have that.
In practice 99% of what you read on Medium is syndicated, they are in the business of trading an audience for content (that in turn will grow their audience).
In practice 99% of what you read on Medium is syndicated, they are in the business of trading an audience for content (that in turn will grow their audience).
But then why does the Medium article still have better SEO than the original one? You are still directing more traffic to Medium instead of your site.
There is a significant amount of content on Medium that's readable without an account. I think, if the goal is to get eyes on your content, Medium's recommendation of your stuff to other people is a great way to achieve that.
Unfortunately, reading Medium articles (even free ones) after a certain number of visits drops the registration banner and prevents you from continuing/reading without an account as a reader.
To me, this engagement model is parasitic and suggests that their valuation/monetization strategy is "eyeballs". Not sure this necessarily helps writers but it certainly helps Medium to drive sign-ups with free content.
Gists do not require an account/login for readers AFAIK.
To me, this engagement model is parasitic and suggests that their valuation/monetization strategy is "eyeballs". Not sure this necessarily helps writers but it certainly helps Medium to drive sign-ups with free content.
Gists do not require an account/login for readers AFAIK.
If gists had a UI update to even look like a decent Jekyll like blog it would be used, the UI also could gain a lot by improving on Medium's editor
Anyone interested in getting this built?
Anyone interested in getting this built?
If a technical article/blog, and thus assuming one has some technical understanding and cares sufficiently to spend 10 minutes per day maintaining it, why not setup a VPS and brand it under yourself (or company) which I'd imagine is well worth the $5 per month that Linode, DO, or others charge.
From the replies given, it seems that Medium facilitates monetization. I'm just curious to know how much that's actually worth vs. the public good.
You can make a solid chunk of passive income thru medium.
You can open an article for no paywall on Medium, but they purposely make it difficult by requiring you to sign up for their partner program (and provide all your taxpayer / payment information) to do so.
So I think it's a split between people who want to try and generate some revenue, and those that don't want to sign up for that program and are too used to Medium to switch away.
So I think it's a split between people who want to try and generate some revenue, and those that don't want to sign up for that program and are too used to Medium to switch away.
I'm just curious to know what the revenue accessibility trade-off is ;-). Exactly how much money does an article on Medium make for a writer?
I don't have a Medium account and I don't like running into paywalls but monetization could potentially have very little to do with the motivation to use a publishing platform like Medium over what is essentially an orphaned single public commit.
I'm not sure I agree that Gists are `orphaned single public commits` as they have a number of features which encourage collaboration (commenting/stars/history/forking). My concern is that most tech articles represent a perspective at a point-in-time and that the broader community would benefit from a living document. YMMV ;-)
Gbduhs SD gsjsfduhsffsgsdcddbdffdggdgdggddhddd. CVS be good.
Gist offers public visibility and commenting without the requisite barrier to entry.
Thoughts?