Ask HN: Is there a negative stigma toward articles written in Medium?
82 comments
I don't click Medium links anymore.
Once they popped up a "Let's make it official!" thing that wanted me to create an account, because apparently I can't read text over HTTP without handing over my name, email address and manage a password.
I also found the amount of trackers disgusting.
Once they popped up a "Let's make it official!" thing that wanted me to create an account, because apparently I can't read text over HTTP without handing over my name, email address and manage a password.
I also found the amount of trackers disgusting.
> I don't click Medium links anymore.
I don't click Substack[0] links anymore, because it's the new Medium
[0] https://substack.com/
I don't click Substack[0] links anymore, because it's the new Medium
[0] https://substack.com/
HN's footnote culture is so weird.
I agree. I wondered what your comment was referring to at first but then I realized the irony and let out a little chuckle.
Medium to Scribe bookmarklet to the rescue. Whenever I find myself on a Medium-powered site (it doesn't have to be medium.com itself):
javascript:(function() { window.location.replace( document.URL.replace( document.location.host,'scribe.rip') )})()
The problem with this bookmarklet is that we have to go to Medium first, then run it. So for Medium it's all the same, they get their views and data all the same.
What we really need is a bookmarklet that changes all found links to Medium articles instead, so you run it before you click. Or extension that does it automatically.
What we really need is a bookmarklet that changes all found links to Medium articles instead, so you run it before you click. Or extension that does it automatically.
Libredirect works fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916318
> they get their views and data all the same.
They don't if you are aggressively blocking their cookies and trackers. They can get what, a page view and an IP address? If that is enough for them to make money out of the thing, then let them.
They don't if you are aggressively blocking their cookies and trackers. They can get what, a page view and an IP address? If that is enough for them to make money out of the thing, then let them.
I avoid clicking them. And when I do accidentally click one, I'm like "why did they use Medium?" and click away.
It’s not so much about medium or any other name, it’s purely a matter of a tease with no follow through.
Any site which teases you with content and then slams the door in your face is obnoxious and aggravating. Sites that aggravate me get negative goodwill.
Eventually, as with Facebook, I avoid them entirely as a matter of personal principle.
My hope is that people with interesting things to share will start to see the decline of their platform and move elsewhere to less user hostile places.
I know companies need revenue, but there are ways of getting revenue without being obnoxious or deceptive.
Any site which teases you with content and then slams the door in your face is obnoxious and aggravating. Sites that aggravate me get negative goodwill.
Eventually, as with Facebook, I avoid them entirely as a matter of personal principle.
My hope is that people with interesting things to share will start to see the decline of their platform and move elsewhere to less user hostile places.
I know companies need revenue, but there are ways of getting revenue without being obnoxious or deceptive.
"there are ways of getting revenue without being obnoxious or deceptive"
If you're including only allowing a certain number of free articles a month, or only showing the first few paragraphs before requesting payment to read the rest, I'm not sure what alternatives you'd think would be non-obnoxious (and what's the deception exactly?). My concern is that there's still no good way to make easy essentially anonymous micropayments to sites with content that you want to read - if there were I doubt there'd really be much issue with just having a simple button to confirm that you're happy to pay a small fee (say, 50c) to read the rest of the article. And if the rest of the article turns out to be crap, you just avoid that site. But 95% of the time I end up reading an archive.ph version of an article is not because I don't think it's worth paying money for, but because I'm expected to provide far more info than I think is relevant and then hand over credit card details in a way that likely will result in ongoing recurring charges. I'd actually prefer it if there were simple mechanism for agreeing to have the cost of viewing pages from particular domains added to my monthly internet usage bill. Are there any ISPs that offer such a facility?
If you're including only allowing a certain number of free articles a month, or only showing the first few paragraphs before requesting payment to read the rest, I'm not sure what alternatives you'd think would be non-obnoxious (and what's the deception exactly?). My concern is that there's still no good way to make easy essentially anonymous micropayments to sites with content that you want to read - if there were I doubt there'd really be much issue with just having a simple button to confirm that you're happy to pay a small fee (say, 50c) to read the rest of the article. And if the rest of the article turns out to be crap, you just avoid that site. But 95% of the time I end up reading an archive.ph version of an article is not because I don't think it's worth paying money for, but because I'm expected to provide far more info than I think is relevant and then hand over credit card details in a way that likely will result in ongoing recurring charges. I'd actually prefer it if there were simple mechanism for agreeing to have the cost of viewing pages from particular domains added to my monthly internet usage bill. Are there any ISPs that offer such a facility?
> anonymous micropayments
At some point we have to trust some online service to keep our data safe, and that service could theoretically provide an anonymous payment proxy.
Ignoring whether one believes that Apple is a good custodian of one's privacy, they already have the email anonymization feature. They could do the same for anonymous payments. That would really only work for small payments which could not be refunded, because the refund process would likely need to expose some personal information.
For me, the concern is not anonymity. It's purely a matter of how much extra noise and email crap I have to suffer if I sign up for "free" access. The user experience once signed in is often just as bad, but differently so.
As for paying for an article, the issue is that most of these sites hide so much of the article that you really don't know what you're paying for. And frankly speaking, most "articles" nowdays are just fluff to raise the visibility of some developer or the company they work for. In some cases, I think that university students from certain parts of the world are being required to generate a certain number of posts per period (as part of their training?). So the signal to noise ratio is continuously getting worse.
At some point we have to trust some online service to keep our data safe, and that service could theoretically provide an anonymous payment proxy.
Ignoring whether one believes that Apple is a good custodian of one's privacy, they already have the email anonymization feature. They could do the same for anonymous payments. That would really only work for small payments which could not be refunded, because the refund process would likely need to expose some personal information.
For me, the concern is not anonymity. It's purely a matter of how much extra noise and email crap I have to suffer if I sign up for "free" access. The user experience once signed in is often just as bad, but differently so.
As for paying for an article, the issue is that most of these sites hide so much of the article that you really don't know what you're paying for. And frankly speaking, most "articles" nowdays are just fluff to raise the visibility of some developer or the company they work for. In some cases, I think that university students from certain parts of the world are being required to generate a certain number of posts per period (as part of their training?). So the signal to noise ratio is continuously getting worse.
> I know companies need revenue, but there are ways of getting revenue without being obnoxious or deceptive.
100% agree. Can't take consumer market customers for granted like you can enterprise ones.
Best option for them was to drop their costs to bare minimum and show some ads.
Have popular content creators spread the word enough.
100% agree. Can't take consumer market customers for granted like you can enterprise ones.
Best option for them was to drop their costs to bare minimum and show some ads.
Have popular content creators spread the word enough.
This feels like a standard playbook.
1. Focus on the goal, make a good product, attract customers.
2. Think, “we’ve done it!”
3. Need to make money somehow.
4. Money making attempts demonstrates that no, you didn’t do it, you were just selling dollars for fifty cents.
5. Product decays into garbage as you harass the user.
6. Substack et al. lines up to be next rider on this roller coaster.
1. Focus on the goal, make a good product, attract customers.
2. Think, “we’ve done it!”
3. Need to make money somehow.
4. Money making attempts demonstrates that no, you didn’t do it, you were just selling dollars for fifty cents.
5. Product decays into garbage as you harass the user.
6. Substack et al. lines up to be next rider on this roller coaster.
Was medium ever a good product? I think as a reader-- certainly not. Megabytes of Javascript, long rendering times, just to display a kilobyte of text?
I feel like it was back in the day. They had a focus on simplicity, great typography and overall reader experience. Once could say that they were focused on being a good medium.
It was! It was light weight (visually anyway) and had a ton of great content on the front page. The writing experience was great and the reading experience had the killer feature of being able to highlight stuff (something I now do all the time via hypothes.is). Oh right, and claps! My favorite way to measure appreciation (just enough effort so mean something)!
Yeah it was pretty good. For a while there the top search results of Medium articles were generally worth reading for a topic. Good UX.
7. Rinse repeat.
Personally, yes, a medium.com link is negative signal that a post is probably going to be thin content marketing fluff.
Same here. I’ve had medium.com disabled down to the link level (I don’t see links to it in my desktop browser) for years, along with Facebook, Twitter, and many other sites I already know I never want to visit, either because they suck or I know I’m going to hit a pay or sign up wall.
Medium used to be great for me as an author because I didn't need to care about hosting, spam filtering, tinkering with themes, keeping wordpress up to date and similar things. I could just write. That was in contrast to managing wordpress on my own web server.
But I've always had fewer reads on Medium than on my own blog even if my articles seem to have about as good SEO, which makes me think there is a stigma.
Also, my more technical articles that dive into the subject matter more deeply have attracted some feedback that they're boring, too long, and too technical on Medium. I have not received such feedback when people were reading the articles on my own wordpress site.
Medium seems to have a stigma for shallow content, but some of its readers also could have an expectation for that style of content.
It's unfortunate that Medium has developed this perception of it. Migrating content between platforms takes time and is difficult. Maintaining my own blog CMS and web server also involves time associated with infosec and fixing technical issues when they arise. But at least my own website will never become "another Medium" unlike any other mainstream platform I could go to, I suppose.
But I've always had fewer reads on Medium than on my own blog even if my articles seem to have about as good SEO, which makes me think there is a stigma.
Also, my more technical articles that dive into the subject matter more deeply have attracted some feedback that they're boring, too long, and too technical on Medium. I have not received such feedback when people were reading the articles on my own wordpress site.
Medium seems to have a stigma for shallow content, but some of its readers also could have an expectation for that style of content.
It's unfortunate that Medium has developed this perception of it. Migrating content between platforms takes time and is difficult. Maintaining my own blog CMS and web server also involves time associated with infosec and fixing technical issues when they arise. But at least my own website will never become "another Medium" unlike any other mainstream platform I could go to, I suppose.
>That was in contrast to managing wordpress on my own web server.
What about hosting it on wordpress.com?
What about hosting it on wordpress.com?
Yes, that would be a good solution too. And there are also other good platforms.
I am looking to migrate from Medium to bearblog.dev. The markdown format should make any future migrations easier, and also let me write articles offline, without any hassles associated with maintaining a server or the too many (in my opinion) bells and whistles on wordpress.com.
Medium was good until it developed this perception problem though. Although maybe highly technical articles never did fit it very well.
I am looking to migrate from Medium to bearblog.dev. The markdown format should make any future migrations easier, and also let me write articles offline, without any hassles associated with maintaining a server or the too many (in my opinion) bells and whistles on wordpress.com.
Medium was good until it developed this perception problem though. Although maybe highly technical articles never did fit it very well.
Yeah, still have my blog on WordPress. There is no drama and no account wall. Just keeps serving my 0.75 new blog posts per year, like a champ.
That's too Web 1.0. Medium is modern and on trend.
I'd go with Substack (https://substack.com/) or Ghost (https://ghost.org/).
Substack is easy (and free) to set up. You have the option to turn on subscriptions and monetise your content via Stripe.
Ghost gives you more flexibility / personalisation. You'll need some web coding/hosting skills or you can subscribe to one of their plans (starts at $9/mo).
Edit: typo.
Substack is easy (and free) to set up. You have the option to turn on subscriptions and monetise your content via Stripe.
Ghost gives you more flexibility / personalisation. You'll need some web coding/hosting skills or you can subscribe to one of their plans (starts at $9/mo).
Edit: typo.
Unfortunately, substack has also started down the same path as Medium. You'll be reading an article someone sent you a link to and mid-way through you'll get a pop-up that obstructs the content requesting you to subscribe. Just let me read in peace!
If you just want a place to dump articles it's probably fine, but for people hoping to attract the HN audience, do us a favor and set up your own blog. These days, you can host it for free on Render, GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel... static site hosting is table stakes, and then you can fully stop pop-ups from annoying your readers.
If you just want a place to dump articles it's probably fine, but for people hoping to attract the HN audience, do us a favor and set up your own blog. These days, you can host it for free on Render, GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel... static site hosting is table stakes, and then you can fully stop pop-ups from annoying your readers.
> Just let me read in peace!
Reader View to the rescue!
Reader View to the rescue!
One one hand.. damn do you guys sound entitled! There's a cost whenever you want to do something on the web, I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you. Are we really mad at Medium for attempting to monetize their infrastructure? I mean I get that ads/marketing is generally bad but how else do you suggest they make money to continue to operate a free service? Can you think of a truly free service? Even distributing flat files on a usb key or stapling printed sheets on trees has a cost, if you don't pay for the product you don't get to complain about how the product tries to stay alive..
> There's a cost whenever you want to do something on the web, I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you. Are we really mad at Medium for attempting to monetize their infrastructure?
Q: Just how much infrastructure does it take to publish a page of well-written content on the web?
[SPOILER] A: Not that much. You can serve an awful lot of static content from a $5/month VM.
Q: Just how much infrastructure does it take to publish a page of well-written content on the web?
[SPOILER] A: Not that much. You can serve an awful lot of static content from a $5/month VM.
VMs don't magically appear or stay on the Internet. What costs you 5$ month uses hardware, Internet networks, and let's not mention virtualization technology. You can try throwing a piece of paper up in "the cloud" and see how long it stays.
... and we know that either the cost to provide all these things is under $5/month, or the company providing that service is using it as a loss leader.
I don't think it's a loss leader; there are too many suppliers.
I don't think it's a loss leader; there are too many suppliers.
> VMs don't magically appear or stay on the Internet. What costs you 5$ month uses hardware, Internet networks, and let's not mention virtualization technology
I run dozens of $5/month VMs. You'd be surprised what you can do with one.
> You can try throwing a piece of paper up in "the cloud" and see how long it stays.
Is that a question?
One answer of mine would be along the lines of "up 126 days, 9:19, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00", picking one of mine completely at random.
Of course you're welcome to pay for AWS/Kubernetes or whatever software [over-]engineering fad rocks your boat.
However, I say phooey to that! If you know what you're doing, a $5 VM is really good way of publishing content for cheap.
I run dozens of $5/month VMs. You'd be surprised what you can do with one.
> You can try throwing a piece of paper up in "the cloud" and see how long it stays.
Is that a question?
One answer of mine would be along the lines of "up 126 days, 9:19, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00", picking one of mine completely at random.
Of course you're welcome to pay for AWS/Kubernetes or whatever software [over-]engineering fad rocks your boat.
However, I say phooey to that! If you know what you're doing, a $5 VM is really good way of publishing content for cheap.
I’m not mad at medium; I just go elsewhere.
Just like I can’t expect them to give me things for free, they can’t expect their readers to stay when they make the experience shit.
Just like I can’t expect them to give me things for free, they can’t expect their readers to stay when they make the experience shit.
I would actually be fine with passive display ads next to the content (I don’t even use ublock these days). It’s that I find getting a pop-up in the middle of reading something jarring and rude. I’m not mad at Medium for trying to make money, nor do I feel entitled to anything, but HN is a competitive forum for content and if I see a medium/substack link I’ll avoid clicking it, which is what OP asked about.
> Will I/my articles get negativity within dev and tech communities because they are written in Medium?
In short: Yes. Medium has earned a negative reputation.
This is due in part to the low-quality Medium articles which rank high on Google and DuckDuckGo. This builds in "ignore Medium articles" as a useful heuristic.
More importantly, I cannot be sure if I will be allowed to read a Medium article without making an account.
Their pricing model is unclear and their ToS is unagreeable, and so far, nothing has incentivized me to compromise here and make a Medium account.
In short: Yes. Medium has earned a negative reputation.
This is due in part to the low-quality Medium articles which rank high on Google and DuckDuckGo. This builds in "ignore Medium articles" as a useful heuristic.
More importantly, I cannot be sure if I will be allowed to read a Medium article without making an account.
Their pricing model is unclear and their ToS is unagreeable, and so far, nothing has incentivized me to compromise here and make a Medium account.
>I cannot be sure if I will be allowed to read a Medium article
True. Every time I've clicked on Medium link the question that I've in mind, higher even than the "will I waste my time?", is "will it allow me to read it?".
True. Every time I've clicked on Medium link the question that I've in mind, higher even than the "will I waste my time?", is "will it allow me to read it?".
Yes! And what’s worse, is each article counts towards some free-article limit.
I would only click on a Medium article if I was referred to it directly from a trusted source, and I save them to PDF before I continue reading them
I would only click on a Medium article if I was referred to it directly from a trusted source, and I save them to PDF before I continue reading them
Well there's definitely a stigma, though for the most part it's more towards the content on Medium than the site and its structure. The average Medium article is often a poorly disguised marketing pitch, a waffling political piece that goes nowhere, or some other paper thin 'thought leader' type stuff. It's become the place where people looking for a quick buck off their writing post online, and there's a certain amount of scepticism towards stuff posted there for that reason alone.
But will it affect your articles? Eh, probably not. Some people will refuse to click, but so long as the topic sounds interesting and you actually deliver on an interesting read for those that view it, you'll probably get past the initial stigma there.
But will it affect your articles? Eh, probably not. Some people will refuse to click, but so long as the topic sounds interesting and you actually deliver on an interesting read for those that view it, you'll probably get past the initial stigma there.
I am less inclined to click on a medium.com link than even a LinkedIn link.
Why? Because of the limitations on articles per month and my skepticism that I either: want to bother with being blocked (negative reinforcement is a thing) or, even if I’m not blocked on this one, how do I know if this article will count against my monthly article limit (FOMO-maybe I’d better spend that token on a different article; can’t take the chance)
I’d be more inclined to read an article linked to me from theanonymousone.com. (Others would be more likely to stumble across it on medium.com, though. Top of funnel is better on medium; conversion rate from mid-funnel to read is better off medium.) Maybe publishing twice covers both bases?
Why? Because of the limitations on articles per month and my skepticism that I either: want to bother with being blocked (negative reinforcement is a thing) or, even if I’m not blocked on this one, how do I know if this article will count against my monthly article limit (FOMO-maybe I’d better spend that token on a different article; can’t take the chance)
I’d be more inclined to read an article linked to me from theanonymousone.com. (Others would be more likely to stumble across it on medium.com, though. Top of funnel is better on medium; conversion rate from mid-funnel to read is better off medium.) Maybe publishing twice covers both bases?
Could I suggest that a few words on what you liked about the Medium experience would be helpful. Is it the editor or the layout of the posts for example? Might help others to guide you to a suitable option.
I can only share a personal opinion.
Yes, I tend to be defiant when clicking on Medium links.
Although I found really interesting authors at the beginning (maybe they were lured or recruited?) the platform has grown enough to attract users that play the clickbait game with attractive article titles, good presentations of issues, often followed by a poor analysis/conclusion that just leaves me frustrated to have clicked the link.
I pay much more attention to HN comments on a Medium article though :)
Yes, I tend to be defiant when clicking on Medium links.
Although I found really interesting authors at the beginning (maybe they were lured or recruited?) the platform has grown enough to attract users that play the clickbait game with attractive article titles, good presentations of issues, often followed by a poor analysis/conclusion that just leaves me frustrated to have clicked the link.
I pay much more attention to HN comments on a Medium article though :)
I do tend to avoid visiting medium links because it feels too much like LinkedIn. There’s too much nonsense wrapped up in a shitty and invasive user experience.
There’s some good stuff there for which I use a laptop to browse. The mobile experience in iOS sucks thanks to a lack of proper browser plug-in support (fuck you, Apple). I feel hostage within my own device.
There’s some good stuff there for which I use a laptop to browse. The mobile experience in iOS sucks thanks to a lack of proper browser plug-in support (fuck you, Apple). I feel hostage within my own device.
Last time I used LinkedIn I thought the quality of the articles was better than Medium but maybe it went downhill.
Reading LinkedIn for the articles seems less plausible than reading Playboy for the articles.
LinkedIn seems to have become a repository for bad content marketing and a forum for VCs and "SEO experts" to spread around self-congratulatory posts about how what they are doing is Absolutely the Greatest Thing Ever In the History of the Internet™.
It used to be true that Medium gave you exposure much like TikTok does it nowadays where you post* a video and it's instantly put in front of thousands of people. Medium had great network effects, but today you can even rank lower.
Also, once you post on Medium, that content is theirs to use freely.
My advice is for you to use your own blog. It's harder to build traffic that way, but all of these traffic is yours. In my opinion, a blog well put together is far better that Medium or any similar 3rd party blogging platform.
You may not have the same network effects starting out, but that traffic is yours to keep.
EDIT: Clarity.
Also, once you post on Medium, that content is theirs to use freely.
My advice is for you to use your own blog. It's harder to build traffic that way, but all of these traffic is yours. In my opinion, a blog well put together is far better that Medium or any similar 3rd party blogging platform.
You may not have the same network effects starting out, but that traffic is yours to keep.
EDIT: Clarity.
some Americans in the (often impoverished) math and science corner of certain specialties seem to repeatedly, pointedly, publish their "industry influencer" manifesto and/or technical overview/brag articles on Medium (e.g. Planet). Its odd and directly counter to lots of intellectual reasoning about how and where to publish. As noted here, Medium itself has become more intrusive over a few years. The whole combination feels onerous. Like some papers of record in capital-S Science itself, Medium gets clicks, but under protest and yes, negative stigma.
This question should be a poll. I'll happily vote yes.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231804
"Sorry, you need over 200 karma to create a poll." :D
Here [1] you go
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223222
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223222
More than thanks. I hope there also I get some more context beyond yes/no (e.g. alternatives :D)
I updated the text asking for alternatives. It looks like some people are already adding some.
Yes. Many thanks.
Medium is paywalled. Unless they are paying you a lot to post there, it’s a bad idea because many people will not be able to read your article. People can read X articles for free then it’s paywalled.
I don’t know how the “don’t paywall my article” works, but I run into paywalled Medium articles all the time.
I don’t know how the “don’t paywall my article” works, but I run into paywalled Medium articles all the time.
I do not care much about who host a generic article, I do care a bit about the author though. After the click if the site load without js/works with Firefox Reader I read, otherwise I quit.
In the past I've seen valuable publications here and there, I prefer avoiding prejudice on a specific platform/business model.
In the past I've seen valuable publications here and there, I prefer avoiding prejudice on a specific platform/business model.
I've read a lot here that medium and dev.to have negative stigma here on HackerNews. So I've taken a look at hashnode and substack. So I now I have accounts at substack, medium, dev.to, hashnod and wordpress blog. It is time to consolidate that :)
I find dev.to to have a lot of good content while Medium is a lot more spammy, both in the content and the site itself.
Medium, Forbes, Nautilus, etc. It's rare that I read anything off of those sites that isn't a waste of time. The only exception might be posts from companies that use medium as their official blog.
Yes. I avoid medium links.
I personally block all medium links for my search engine results. The amount of low quality spam content on sites like medium and quora make it not worth the effort to sort through.
I avoid Medium and Quora at all costs. Both are viewer hostile.
I read it sometimes, but I'm getting sick of the click-bait "joke" articles, like the recent "Python 3.14 Will be Faster than C++".
I usually try to avoid Medium and Medium-like platforms, but it's not a strict rule. I've found some very good articles there.
[deleted]
I avoid Medium and Substack, questionable content quality plus some odd patterns always baiting to sign up or subscribe to something or whatever.
I just find the content dull and it never lives up to the quality they imply. I usually just shut the tab if I realise it's Medium hosted.
The site feels too ‘fat’. Too much noise vs. content. Also the barrier to entry is very low so the quality is not guaranteed.
Apart from the tracking and soft paywall issues that you and some comments mention, there's another problem with sites like Medium and Substack (and Linkedin and others, too)
Publishing on those sites requires minimal effort. As the userbase grows, those sites attract more and more low-quality creators. Although there are many excellent writers on Medium, there is naturally also an increasing proportion of spam.
This flood of low effort content harms the perception of the entire site, so today when we see a Medium.com link perhaps we hesitate to click.
Publishing on those sites requires minimal effort. As the userbase grows, those sites attract more and more low-quality creators. Although there are many excellent writers on Medium, there is naturally also an increasing proportion of spam.
This flood of low effort content harms the perception of the entire site, so today when we see a Medium.com link perhaps we hesitate to click.
The medium is the message, and it's probably not the message you want to send.
Seeing this is reminding me that I need to migrate my blog from Medium...
yes they are slow, full of trash links, and generally low quality content compared to what was there years before
I paid the yearly fee for two years up until 2020. There were a handful of authors and topics I liked on Medium. Those authors have since left the platform. The topics I’m interested in kind of dried up with not much worth reading these days.
I don’t care so much about the paywall. It is the low quality of content that pushes me away.
Writers saw an opportunity to make money on Medium. This gradually dragged down the overall quality of writing on platform, and likely the reputation of the platform itself.
These days whenever I do click through to a Medium article, it rarely delivers on its title.
I don’t care so much about the paywall. It is the low quality of content that pushes me away.
Writers saw an opportunity to make money on Medium. This gradually dragged down the overall quality of writing on platform, and likely the reputation of the platform itself.
These days whenever I do click through to a Medium article, it rarely delivers on its title.
I don't think they'll get negativity so much as people will just be less likely to click on them. When I see a Medium link I often just skip it, expecting to see either some paywall/registration popup or maybe a lower quality self-promotional article.
Too many click baits articles
I want to start a little bit of writing, for various reasons in which monetisation does not play a role.
I do myself dislike how Medium blocks access to articles, but read that you can exclude your articles from that. Does it affect how Medium "exposes" your article to the web?
I wrote two Medium articles as part of my job for my previous company and was happy with the overall experience, except this Freemium behaviour.
Will I/my articles get negativity within dev and tech communities because they are written in Medium?
Thanks