[rjain15]

There is nothing wrong in making money, if you want to attract good content writers and curate content, provide additional services like digital magazine, you have to make money to pay your writers, curators and staff.

I don't write for Medium, but I think rather than trashing Medium, maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers. There is enough garbage out in the internet, maybe Medium can help clean it up.

[taude]

I'm sure there's other like me here, but I don't even click on articles published in Medium anymore because I don't want to deal with their gigantic popup that interferes with me getting to the content.

I think we're eventually going to see a resurgence in open platforms where content creators better control their content. I don't think the discoverability of these content hubs is worth it, I personally do more discovery other ways and usually only end up on the site after a recommendation, etc...

[potta_coffee]

I miss the days when people had their own websites, blogs, whatever, and then there were forums. Facebook has killed forums and I hate them for it.

[RajT88]

I legitimately want to read the articles--they have a lot of interesting ones.

The curious thing is that often enough you can't even click through--they insist that it's "Medium Exclusive" content and you can only view 3 a month. (Browser Private mode helps, but is not a panacea) But... If I search the 'net for the title of the supposed Exclusive article, I can frequently find it elsewhere with no nagging or paywall.

I don't really believe Medium has the exclusive content that gives it an advantage over anything else, but it's useful as curated, indexed content that you can find elsewhere. This is probably not what they are going for, though.

[enraged_camel]

>>I think we're eventually going to see a resurgence in open platforms where content creators better control their content.

Sure, but as those platforms grow, they will run into the same problem: having to pay for infrastructure. That shit ain’t cheap once you get past a certain size.

[eropple]

> maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers

This affinity both for caping up for corporate entities who'd sell you for your component atoms were it feasible to do so, and then for doing free work for them, is so weird. They're the ones making the money. Why isn't it incumbent upon them to do so?

[moorhosj]

Nobody said there is anything wrong with making money, that’s a straw man. The reality is that taking venture funding has forced these companies to compromise what made them useful in order to chase revenue for investors.

[criddell]

The venture funding doesn't really have anything to do with it, does it? Even if they were entirely self funded, they still need to generate enough revenue to cover their costs.

It feels like Medium is circling the drain.

[cujo]

> maybe we should help make it as a better platform for publishers

Or maybe that's their mission and they should do that? I'm not sure why any of us as writer or readers should or could do this.

[shanemhansen]

I don't understand this mindset. In my worldview people deserve investment. VC funded corporations don't deserve any of my time to "make it as a better platform".

Companies should live or die by the market and if they piss customers off and lose marketshare, that's the market working for once.

[rdiddly]

There's nothing wrong with making money, but I also don't owe them money. Or attention, or to say nice things.