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by JohnFen 2354 days ago
I put my blog on my own site. I think it's worth doing that even if you don't update your blog frequently. For such a blog, you can get commercial hosting for about $5/mo that includes a WordPress installation.

Whatever you do, though, please don't use Medium!
3 comments
rpastuszak 2352 days ago
You can host it for free with Github pages/Netlify and a static site generator such as Hugo or 11ty (https://www.11ty.dev/).

Plus, the initial setup takes just a few minutes. Iterating with these tools is fairly easy, although 11ty would be my preference due to its simplicity.

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CtrlAltEngage 2354 days ago
Haha I was waiting for that plea!

Yeah I do have a domain I could use for a WordPress site potentially

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rahulchhabra07 2354 days ago
Why no for Medium?
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godot 2352 days ago
Not GP but I have some opinions as well. I would've been a Medium advocate several years ago. But all the things they've done in the past few years have been hostile to writers.

1. Got rid of custom domains, so you have to use a medium.com one. So if you're hoping to start a blog using Medium as a platform/engine but with your own domain, this is a dealbreaker.

2. Even if you have hundreds of followers, publishing an article on Medium does nothing about surfacing it to any of these followers. Your best bet to distribute the article is still posting on HN and Reddit or Twitter/FB.

3. On a related note, if you're hoping Medium would bring you traffic, it's 100% up to their editorial if they would feature your post on their homepage, email, etc. Probably best not to bet on it.

4. Various UI and UX issues pile up over the years. When you open a Medium article on a mobile on a fresh browser nowadays, you're likely faced with enough popups that cover more than half the screen. It's just not nice.

5. Most people hate their paywall. I don't have a strong opinion here myself.

TBH, most of the draw near the beginning of Medium was how easy it was to start an account and just write stuff, and the writing interface is nice. There has been a number of open source JS projects since then to emulate the Medium editor. IMO there really isn't any reason for anyone new to start on Medium anymore.

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