Signal v. Noise Leaves Medium ⇥ m.signalvnoise.com

David Heinemeier Hansson:

When we moved over, Medium was all about attracting big blogs and other publishers. This was going to be a new space for a new time where publishers could find a home. And it was. For a while.

These days Medium is focused on their membership offering, though. Trying to aggregate writing from many sources and sell a broad subscription on top of that. And it’s a neat model, and it’s wonderful to see Medium try something different. But it’s not for us, and it’s not for Signal v Noise.

[…]

That doesn’t mean we regret our time at Medium. Being on Medium helped propel some of our best writing to a whole new audience. But these days there’s less of a “what Medium is doing for us”, and a whole lot more of “what we’re doing for Medium”. It was a good time while it lasted, but good times are gone.

It was just a few years ago that a bunch of publications were enticed by Medium to migrate their websites; now, nearly all of them have left the platform. I say good riddance; if you take your writing seriously, you should have as much control over it as possible.¹

Update: Manton Reece:

Medium.com was swinging in the wrong direction, especially with the change last year to no longer allow custom domain names. I think 2019 is going to be a great year for blogging.

I think so, too.