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by fy20 1980 days ago
I absolutely detest finding Medium articles in search results. Often they contain good knowledge which confuses me even more.

For anyone unaware - it seems a lot of people must be, otherwise I don't understand why anyone would choose to publish there - this is the flow for most users trying to read your articles:

- See a Google search result that goes to Medium

- Click the link and start reading

- Read the first two paragraphs, then see a popup saying you need to login to continue reading for free (the rest of the page isn't rendered, so you can't just block it with adblock)

- Reluctantly decide to login, waiting a few minutes for the email link to click on to do so

- Log in, then have to navigate your history back to the article, as they take you to a different page

- Start reading again, and after the first two paragraphs get a popup saying you need to pay $5/mo to see the rest of the article

- Rage quit your job and go live in the forest

I understand there are ways around the paywall, but that's not what most users are going to do.

2 comments

Have you tried accessing a Medium link in Incognito mode?
That's a workaround for a terrible user experience. The fact that you need to suggest that at all is telling. Wait until they start blocking private session users like some news papers...
They used to do this at some point. I remember medium telling me I could not proceed in incognito. I wonder why they rolled that back.
I don’t login. I just skip the article.