Why Not Medium?

I decided to stop publishing to my Medium Account. I'm not planning to delete the account; the content that is there will remain. However, I will not be continuing to post there.

Instead, I'm starting a section on my website for Publications. I want to start by posting a little about this decision, both to explain and to remind my future self why I am here.

Visibility vs Trust

Publishing to a platform like Medium or Substack can give your posts a lot of visibility. The platform can push your content in the feed and associated articles, bringing new readers to your publication. This is appealing, as I want people to read what I write.

What you lose with this algorithmic feed is trust. The feed will push whatever posts it can in front of users, regardless of your affiliation with the writer, and whether that information is valuable or trusted. I don't find this approach to sharing information valuable as a reader, and so I hesitate to participate in it as a writer. I want to focus on creating a tighter circle of trust in my writing.

Platform Rot

At the time of writing, internet platforms are undergoing a sort of transformation. Investment money isn't being poured into platforms as in recent years, and many established platforms are scrambling to find profits in business models that may not be profitable.

As a result, many platforms are now closing off APIs^[1], walling-off content^[2] and increasing advertising efforts^[3]. As this happens I grow increasingly worried about link rot in my own content, the general experience of the platform changing, as well as the increasingly likely possibility that my content will sit on a platform that has largely been abandoned anyway.

Moving my writing to my own site allows me to control all of these concerns. Though I am well aware that my posts will have far less visibility and readership than on a platform like Medium or Substack would.

The Vision

The design for my publications is intentionally simple. I don't want the burden of maintaining the site to be very high. Moreover, I don't need any distractions here. I am not trying to keep you on the platform by suggesting your next article. I don't need flashy branding. I only want somewhere to write. Aside from some basic navigation, that's all that's here.

My first publication is called Expect Fun, and it's a series on Multiplatform Kotlin development. You can read the first article now, which is a rehash of my thoughts on value classes and enums, which I've revised slightly since writing about it previously.