Plenty of great people have cycled through #Medium at various points, but I would love to see a little bit of memory retention about their organizational history:
"Medium abruptly cancels the membership programs of its 21 remaining subscription publishers" https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/05/medium-abruptly-cancels-the-membership-programs-of-its-21-remaining-publisher-partners/
"‘We had no idea that it was coming’: Medium pulls the rug from under publications" https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/medium-publication.php
"The long, complicated, and extremely frustrating history of Medium, 2012–present" https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/03/the-long-complicated-and-extremely-frustrating-history-of-medium-2012-present/
"Medium has pivoted so many times it has now come full circle" https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/medium-has-pivoted-so-many-times-it-has-now-come-full-circle.php
"Medium Pivots Again, Offers Voluntary Buyouts to Editorial Staff" https://www.thewrap.com/medium-pivots-again-offers-voluntary-buyouts-to-editorial-staff/
So I mean feel free to hop on that scorpion's back! You might have an awesome trip across the river and everyone will be super chill and friendly forever. But maybe check out the history before you hype up their new Mastodon experiment and keep your eye on the exits.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As with Substack, there are always going to be a ton of people who very understandably feel like they have to keep quiet about the bad stuff because most writers live in various states of perpetual precarity—which is exactly why this clownshow history drives me up the wall. Tech companies buy new toys and throw away the old ones and real people get hurt.
LAST ONE but I know for a fact that criticizing this stuff is professionally damaging, bc a tech company exec in NYC literally called me in on the pretense of offering editorial work, only to turn his computer around to point out a (mild) critical tweet I once sent, and demand that I explain myself before sending me home.
So keep that in mind when people stay quiet.
@kissane that is absolutely wild levels of fuckery. Jesus.
@jaykaydee The thinnest skins imaginable!
@kissane truly. Also just such a great example of how Twitter for all its faults *did* do some things to balance power relations, how bosses hate that, and how making you physically present is a way for them to re-asset that power (see also: return to office mandates)
@jaykaydee Oh completely yes. One of the best things about twitter.
@kissane oh my god Erin
@ken By far the most cartoonish experience of my professional life
@kissane did you laugh very hard and walk out
@ken to be completely honest, I gapped out and came to on the street, but I'm pretty sure the gist was "ok but I said what I said"
it's not like I'm especially hardass or anything, just—come onnnn
There's a scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where a Nazi is knifing an American soldier and shushing him as he dies.
That's the world Republican billionaire donors are funding into existence:
Fascists demanding complicit silence as democracy is being knifed to death.
A world where mutual respect doesn't exist.
It's not being thin-skinned. It's fascists demanding silent deference to authority.
@Npars01 That’s quite an aggressive mental image and response to process before coffee.
(Unfortunately, shit bosses do flourish across the political spectrum and can probably be discussed as a freestanding phenomenon, but
FWIW as a long-time subscriber and partner program member, there are many things I like about @medium, particularly the ad-free reading experience. But I also recognize and understand the criticism, considering the company's history of pivots. With the current CEO, I remain cautiously optimistic about the site's future.
@funcrunch @medium I genuinely hope it works out, and that it helps a lot of writers.
@funcrunch @medium lol yes defederating in advance seems deeply silly to me, but fedis gonna defed
@kissane just honestly incredible to witness this today.
@dansinker Cannot fucking take it Dan
@kissane @dansinker this is soooo incredibly lolsob, what a journey they are on!!
@dansinker @kissane What happened today?
@fraying @dansinker @kissane
If you think about, the choice of the term «embraces» is ... courageous, when you consider that a sizable portion of the criticism is going to be «beware EEE»
HT @KevinMarks