[abhinavsharma]

It's important to acknowledge that centralized platforms like Medium have benefits, and a truly decentralized writing platform will only work if those problems are worked out to a level where writers have a good experience.

- The biggest thing they give a lot of writers is the promise of automated distribution through their topic and user graphs.

- They can ensure higher comment quality and real identity through review systems that cost money but have economies of scale.

- It seems like domain-wide features is still something Google uses so if they keep the average content quality high, there's an SEO advantage to using these platforms.

- They can invest in a follow graph protocol that's non-anonymous (unlike RSS) so you know exactly who your audience is as a writer.

- They can otherwise make more complex product investments that will take the open-source community a little longer to coordinate on.

Many of the points I mention above are possible in decentralized platforms, they just haven't yet come together in a cost-effective (zero monetary cost and high ease-of-use) way for writers.