Comment by Cthulhu_
8 hours ago
That's the harsh reality, first (anecdotally / personal view) it became social media that linked to blog posts - especially Twitter was used as an aggregator for "I wrote a blog post about xyz".
Then Medium took off, and there was a vibe of blog posts being more authoritative if they were published on Medium. It was like the TED talks of blog posts. But also it mean that if you had a blog of your own and its contents were reposted on Medium, the latter would get more views.
I don't have the full picture of the whole issue. I suspect consumers generally want a single website to read stuff on, instead of the sometimes jarring style differences between blog sites - even if that means they have individual personality.
> even if that means they have individual personality
Sadly I think that’s true. People like consistency. Lets them more easily trust. It’s what makes Starbucks and McDonalds so popular even if they aren’t the best options in their category.
I think Medium succeeded at first because it allowed minimal personalization while still signaling to users “this is a legitimate article and not some rando on the web”.
I think this might be a you problem because both Medium and Substack allowed randoms on the Internet to post from day 1. There aren't any requirements, anyone can do it.
Im gonna chip in and say that yes while they allow randos to post to the same extent i imagine the average person views a blog post/article as more legitimate when it has the branding of substack or medium attached to it rather than someones unbranded personal website
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From my point of view, the advantage of those blog platforms is that I don't have to build and maintain my own set of bookmarks. I'm happy to delegate that to the recommendation system.