I am not defending their model nor their implementation.
> Breaking a browsers default behaviour IMO needs a good justification. This isn't a good justification.
Good enough for them though. Their site, their choice. Also, it's not like there isn't many browser extensions to disable that behavior.
A site full of programming articles (Medium) probably wants its articles to be read by programmers.
I haven't found official data but programming is in the 25th position and software in dev in the 40th:
Here are the top 43 most popular Medium tags in 2021
Life (520,000 followers) Startup (487,000 followers) Blockchain (473,000 followers) Poetry (455,000 followers) Life Lessons (452,000 followers) Politics (396,000 followers) Health (374,000 followers) Love (350,000 followers) Travel (334,000 followers) Technology (334,000 followers) Entrepreneurship (333,000 followers) Self Improvement (332,000 followers) Education (330,000 followers) Writing (324,000 followers) Business (320,000 followers) Cryptocurrency (314,000 followers) Design (267,000 followers) Social Media (241,000 followers) Music (228,000 followers) Relationships (214,000 followers) Social Media (214,000 followers) Sports (209,000 followers) Mental Health (202,000 followers) Productivity (187,000 followers) Programming (186,000 followers) Food (167,000 followers) Leadership (166,000 followers) Javascript (160,000 followers) Art (152,000 followers) Fiction (143,000 followers) Humor (143,000 followers) Artificial Intelligence (143,000 followers) UX (138,000 followers) Culture (136,000 followers) Books (135,00 followers) Photography (128,000 followers) Creativity (126,000 followers) Data Science (123,000 followers) Psychology (119,000 followers) Software Development (117,000 followers) Coronavirus (115,000 followers) Self (104,000 followers) Family (103,000 followers)
Other articles I found also show programming articles are in the bottom of the list.
I am not defending their model nor their implementation.
> Breaking a browsers default behaviour IMO needs a good justification. This isn't a good justification.
Good enough for them though. Their site, their choice. Also, it's not like there isn't many browser extensions to disable that behavior.