Same here. I have no patience for this type of shameless spamming anymore. One thing I hate about Medium is that it puts a paywall across everything, as if they’re The NY Times. If anything, I care about the author I’m reading, not Medium. With Substack I can subscribe to an individual author and they are the ones deciding what to paywall. Sure Substack gets a cut if I subscribe but that’s in the background.
I'll interrupt this stream of consensus to note I don't have issues following a link to Medium.
Here's how it goes: I open a link, I dismiss a sign-up suggestion screen (if any), I read the stuff, and then I go. If there's a paywall I leave, but I see many more paywalls at links to the Economist or similar sources so what's the big deal? People want to make money.
There are low-quality posts but they are plenty on all platforms (dev.to comes to mind). On plus side Medium articles are comfortable to read without distractions.
Point me to where I said "Medium is Economist" or cease.
I can count on my fingers the number of Economist articles I read per year while my history is full of recent Medium visits, mostly related to work so stuff that translates in productivity and earnings. They're not even in the same ballpark.
> I see many more paywalls at links to the Economist or similar sources so what's the big deal? People want to make money.
Of course but it has to be a balance. Medium does all the things I mention.
If they did just one of those to monetize, ok I'd not be happy but I'd give them a pass. A paywall ideally not because I'm really not going to subscribe after reading only 3 articles.
But doing all of those makes me feel like a cash cow. Like they're grasping at straws desperate to get some cash. They don't understand the user-hostility of this and that's important because the users are their resources.
And as far as the NYT and Economist, I avoid those too. If I really think something is worth reading I'll use a paywall bypass tool but generally I don't even bother.
Maybe that's just me or selective geolocation but in my experience Medium almost never hits with a paywall, and because a lot of useful material is there I am not seeing it a problem. Substack links, for example, are significantly more annoying so I actually take a moment and think if I should even bother.
