Comment by jmathai
9 hours ago
> 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
Funny… I’ve often felt the exact opposite.
Medium articles often look janky; if you’ve got a personal website you’ve at least figured out how to get that working, and if it looks good, that’s a positive signal!
Think myname@gmail.com vs me@myname.com
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.