Voyageur Technologique

Why I Left Medium

They kept changing the damn layout on me. I specifically chose Medium because they allowed you to have little side-notes shown at the same time as your main article. Then they made those side-notes “replies” even though they clearly weren’t the same thing as the existing “replies”.

Medium limits what I can put on the web. If I want a table, an embedded Mindmup or anything else, I’m screwed. If I want my diagrams to be SVG or I want to create simulations, I’m even more screwed.

The export format is atrocious. I just wanted to convert my articles into Markdown and that was not easily done. I don’t trust them to let me leave with the rest of my content if things get worse or if I want to switch to a decentralized solution.

There’s no version control. I can’t see what I’ve changed and how I’ve changed it over time.

The bright layout literally hurts my eyes. I’m sensitive to light, so I can’t look at bright web-pages too long without getting a head-ache and becoming nauseous. I’ve solved this partially with Stylus, but it’s not a very durable solution.

The page size is ridiculous. My book review for “The Entrepreneurial State” is literally 10 times smaller on my new website than when it was hosted on Medium. This means faster load times and a wider reach.

That being said, I am going to miss the WYSIWYG editor and the instant change visibility.

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