You don't have to deal with any tech stuff, basically that's the appeal. No server management, no separate newsletter service, no nothing. Log in to your account, write and publish with built in monetisation.
The monetization is worth pretty much zero for most people. But it's low friction and at least Medium used to have an aura of carrying more reputational weight than a personal blog did. (Which was BS but was the case at least once upon a time.)
> Medium used to have an aura of carrying more reputational weight than a personal blog did.
At least within the realm of technical discussion, I'll be continuing to view it as a mostly negative signal. The institution is very rarely the individual, and there isn't value in assigning positive weight when said institution doesn't carry any itself.
Increased friction is counter-intuitively a positive here, it shows that the author has at least put some real investment into the presentation of their work. Don't get me wrong, doesn't need to be a fully self-designed/built website, just spending some cash on a domain && Wix template is at least _something_ more than throwing words at a page to profit.
I've been going back and forth for a blog/website relaunch. My current thinking is I'll just go with a new template on Google Blogger. I've actually been happy enough with that over the years.
But then aren't people sick of moving from platform to platform? I've read recently some people saying they were fleeing from substack (many presumably were previously on medium) because of neonazi contents being non moderated.
I'd rather pay a little for my own domain and hosting (you don't even have to manage the server and a cms) than having to migrate every few internet dramas.