5 ms·

Interestingly enough, Substack is heading down the same direction - when you get linked to an article, it now forces a full screen popup on you asking if you wa

by jklm 4y ago

Interestingly enough, Substack is heading down the same direction - when you get linked to an article, it now forces a full screen popup on you asking if you want to subscribe or just read.

SanjayMehta 4y ago
Substack has RSS feeds.
simonsarris 4y ago
As an author, you can turn this off in the settings
SQueeeeeL 4y ago
None of the incentives changed. We really just need someone egalitarian to make the craigslist of blogs and never be tempted to stab the goose who's laying the golden eggs for quick monetization. The blogging space is too long-term for that short sighted nonsense
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  This would be a good service for the Wikimedia Foundation to provide, IMO.
- Permit 4y ago
  > never be tempted to stab the goose who's laying the golden eggs Isn’t the whole point that there are no golden eggs? People don’t want to pay and people don’t want ads. Where would you get income for the authors and for the platform itself?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Write a book or become an e-celeb and go on tour. 90% of blog/newsletter content (which are basically the same thing) is just self-promotion anyway.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      Yeah man, the popups on blogs feel a lot like being forced to watch commercials before a movie trailer
  - vimda 4y ago
    I think there's monitization models somewhere there. Off the top of my head, you could go the email route and charge for "premium" features. Analytics, custom domains etc. Either that or it could to be run as a loss leader for some other service
    - readwriterick 4y ago
      The thing is there's no money in charging writers, really. There's just not enough of them, and they aren't going to pay you enough (certainly not to reach golden egg territory). You must monetize on a per reader basis if you want real revenue.
      - PaulHoule 4y ago
        There is a market but how big, I'd assume that these are real offers https://wordpress.com/pricing/?compare=1#lpc-pricing https://wordpress.com/pricing/?compare=1#lpc-pricing that seem like what somebody would pay. If you'd assume somebody spends 4 hours a week blogging and their time is worth $25 an hour you'd be putting $400 of hour of labor in a month and spending $40 for hosting is a fraction of that. That $25/hour would seem low to some people but high to others: some people are time-rich and cash-poor and others the other way around. The horrific truth about the "Next Medium" is that it is going to appeal to people who are too lazy to write a successful blog by having GPT-4 write their blog posts for them.
- neodymiumphish 4y ago
  What's wrong with GitHub spaces?
  - neodymiumphish 4y ago
    Pages*
  - inerte 4y ago
    From my perspective there's nothing wrong, but most of the population that has ever even heard of Github think of it as a complex programmer's only thing. I remember a project I did some time ago where we required Github integration, every employee of the company was supposed to have a Github account, it was even part of the onboarding day, there was a very internal knowledge base page on how to setup Github, and EVEN then people would just hear the word "Github" and freak out saying a bunch of people in the company would never ever be able to setup an account there.
drc500free 4y ago
Somehow I find that less annoying with substack, because their positioning is clearly "look, this is a newsletter, not a blog." The dark UI patterns around dismissing the pop up are annoying though.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Yeah that's the problem. I don't want a newsletter, I want a blog. And like the OP I only care about people reading my stuff. I don't care about monetisation and I definitely don't want to put them through all the crap that medium does.. substack is not a great alternative because it's also monetisation focused for authors.
  - whiplash451 4y ago
    Genuine question. Isn’t HN what you are looking for then? What else would you need from a blog?
    - wkat4242 4y ago
      Good question! I thought of it but Hacker News posts are pure text, you can't add a single picture. The reading format is also not suitable for long form, and it makes the post text kinda grey which makes it even harder to read. So, no. The community is great but it's not a blogging platform. I could self host my blog and post links here for discovery but self-promotion is generally frowned upon. I don't want to abuse the community.
      - rsync 4y ago
        "I thought of it but Hacker News posts are pure text, you can't add a single picture." ... which is, in my opinion, an overlooked and extremely powerful filter.
        PaulHoule 4y ago
        It's a great way to reduce the moderation burden. If people can upload images people will upload atrocity pictures (with the caption POST A STUPID IMAGE MEME... U DIE!), lewd pictures, CSAM pictures, and other things that will waste your time to manage if they don't get you in trouble outright. (It was super easy to get a basically G rated site demonetized with a 10⁻⁴ fraction of problem images ten years ago, it must be much worse now.)
subarctic 4y ago
It's done that as long as I can remember - the "let me read it first" thing, right? Or did they change something recently?
ren_engineer 4y ago
companies have to make money at some point, it's not coincidence all these same types of sites do the same thing once they've burned through their VC money and have to make money. Hosting this type of stuff is a commodity service, it's why you constantly see a churn of people from each VC subsidized service

by jklm 4y ago

Interestingly enough, Substack is heading down the same direction - when you get linked to an article, it now forces a full screen popup on you asking if you want to subscribe or just read.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

Substack has RSS feeds.

simonsarris 4y ago

As an author, you can turn this off in the settings

SQueeeeeL 4y ago

None of the incentives changed. We really just need someone egalitarian to make the craigslist of blogs and never be tempted to stab the goose who's laying the golden eggs for quick monetization. The blogging space is too long-term for that short sighted nonsense

candiddevmike 4y ago
This would be a good service for the Wikimedia Foundation to provide, IMO.
Permit 4y ago
> never be tempted to stab the goose who's laying the golden eggs Isn’t the whole point that there are no golden eggs? People don’t want to pay and people don’t want ads. Where would you get income for the authors and for the platform itself?
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Write a book or become an e-celeb and go on tour. 90% of blog/newsletter content (which are basically the same thing) is just self-promotion anyway.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    Yeah man, the popups on blogs feel a lot like being forced to watch commercials before a movie trailer
- vimda 4y ago
  I think there's monitization models somewhere there. Off the top of my head, you could go the email route and charge for "premium" features. Analytics, custom domains etc. Either that or it could to be run as a loss leader for some other service
  - readwriterick 4y ago
    The thing is there's no money in charging writers, really. There's just not enough of them, and they aren't going to pay you enough (certainly not to reach golden egg territory). You must monetize on a per reader basis if you want real revenue.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      There is a market but how big, I'd assume that these are real offers https://wordpress.com/pricing/?compare=1#lpc-pricing https://wordpress.com/pricing/?compare=1#lpc-pricing that seem like what somebody would pay. If you'd assume somebody spends 4 hours a week blogging and their time is worth $25 an hour you'd be putting $400 of hour of labor in a month and spending $40 for hosting is a fraction of that. That $25/hour would seem low to some people but high to others: some people are time-rich and cash-poor and others the other way around. The horrific truth about the "Next Medium" is that it is going to appeal to people who are too lazy to write a successful blog by having GPT-4 write their blog posts for them.
neodymiumphish 4y ago
What's wrong with GitHub spaces?
- neodymiumphish 4y ago
  Pages*
- inerte 4y ago
  From my perspective there's nothing wrong, but most of the population that has ever even heard of Github think of it as a complex programmer's only thing. I remember a project I did some time ago where we required Github integration, every employee of the company was supposed to have a Github account, it was even part of the onboarding day, there was a very internal knowledge base page on how to setup Github, and EVEN then people would just hear the word "Github" and freak out saying a bunch of people in the company would never ever be able to setup an account there.

drc500free 4y ago

Somehow I find that less annoying with substack, because their positioning is clearly "look, this is a newsletter, not a blog." The dark UI patterns around dismissing the pop up are annoying though.

wkat4242 4y ago
Yeah that's the problem. I don't want a newsletter, I want a blog. And like the OP I only care about people reading my stuff. I don't care about monetisation and I definitely don't want to put them through all the crap that medium does.. substack is not a great alternative because it's also monetisation focused for authors.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  Genuine question. Isn’t HN what you are looking for then? What else would you need from a blog?
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Good question! I thought of it but Hacker News posts are pure text, you can't add a single picture. The reading format is also not suitable for long form, and it makes the post text kinda grey which makes it even harder to read. So, no. The community is great but it's not a blogging platform. I could self host my blog and post links here for discovery but self-promotion is generally frowned upon. I don't want to abuse the community.
    - rsync 4y ago
      "I thought of it but Hacker News posts are pure text, you can't add a single picture." ... which is, in my opinion, an overlooked and extremely powerful filter.
      - PaulHoule 4y ago
        It's a great way to reduce the moderation burden. If people can upload images people will upload atrocity pictures (with the caption POST A STUPID IMAGE MEME... U DIE!), lewd pictures, CSAM pictures, and other things that will waste your time to manage if they don't get you in trouble outright. (It was super easy to get a basically G rated site demonetized with a 10⁻⁴ fraction of problem images ten years ago, it must be much worse now.)

subarctic 4y ago

It's done that as long as I can remember - the "let me read it first" thing, right? Or did they change something recently?

ren_engineer 4y ago

companies have to make money at some point, it's not coincidence all these same types of sites do the same thing once they've burned through their VC money and have to make money. Hosting this type of stuff is a commodity service, it's why you constantly see a churn of people from each VC subsidized service