[WhitneyLand]

Finding a "non-suck' Medium is similar to some classic startup problems.

Medium's tech complexity and operating costs are low (relative to web apps with similar scale).

Totally agree the real problem is not technical, its reestablishing a community of significant size and quality, never an easy thing.

For things like this, I wonder if the HN community has the characteristics to be a rallying point to build the momentum/awareness needed for initiatives with enough interest.

I have no doubt HN folks could inspire (indeed, have inspired) enough to catalyze formidable technical initiatives.

But that's a different problem, tech can be willed into existence if a handful of the right people get interested. Harder to predict when it's possible for sheer force of will to give rise to a quality community.

[Kye]

Write.as and its self-hosted WriteFreely seems to be making some progress. They added ActivityPub support, so you even get the network effects.