After further review, we’re going to be leaving Medium at some point in the near-to-mid-term future. Thanks for all the fish,@ev! You built a beautiful typewriter, the early community was awesome, and I respect trying something different. Shame about the VC pressures. Adieu!
If you’re not familiar with Signal v. Noise, it’s a well-known “publication about the web” with almost 20 years of history. I’ve been reading Signal v. Noise for over a decade now, and their strong opinions on product, design, and business tend to be succinct and influential in those communities.
I was always a bit surprised that Basecamp — staunchly in support of companies that choose profit over potential growth — would go all-in with a platform like Medium. A VC-funded, zero profit publishing company that restricts your ability to control the design of your content felt like the antithesis to what Signal v. Noise was all about. I’m not sure where they’ll go next (their previous blog was a homegrown Rails app), but if they’re not going back to something in-house I could see them trying out Ghost; the 2.0 release looks slick.
Regardless, this isn’t a great sign for Medium. Ever since they dropped support for custom domains, I don’t see why any new publications would seriously consider moving there. And if you already have a custom domain with Medium, I’d urge you to start looking at alternatives.
I should really just put that in my site’s header.