I just Saved $525. Thanks, Medium!
Medium just had a big announcement for those of us with self-hosted blogs at Medium, which is more like Medium-hosted sites with custom domains. It’s an awesome service, with FAST speeds, all the features you need, and free! Until today.
In their blog announcement, they announced that keeping a site on Medium will be a one-time fee of $75 per site. It’s a move I would have recommended relatively long-ago. The number of people with publications on @Medium has been growing at a fast clip since as long as they announced it, about a year ago if I remember correctly. It’s gotta be getting expensive to pick up that tab. It got lots and lots of people and companies onboarded, and I’ve written many times that @medium is who WordPress should have its eyes on, not Drupal or Joomla or Wix or whatever. Matt Mullenweg, during that time, has introduced several money-making enterprises to Automattic and the WordPress foundation. Which isn’t that big of a deal as market share to WordPress. When you get to a certain scale, in any enterprise, market share becomes more important than just cash flow. Medium is still working on cash flow.
Here’s the announcement:
Hi,
Since launching Medium for publishers, we’ve been working hard to make our platform the best home for your publication. As part of that effort, we introduced custom domains for those who want to add their personalized touch to the Medium experience.
To continue offering this level of customization, we will now charge a one-time payment of $75, which includes your domain setup, an SSL certificate, and ongoing support for your domain on Medium.
As an early user of custom domains, we are waiving this charge for your active publications. Should you wish to create another publication using a new custom domain in the future, this fee will apply.
Thank you so much for being an important part of our Medium community. Write on.
— Your friends at Medium
I was one of the first people who jumped at that opportunity. As someone who always has a list of unused domains laying around and doesn’t want to pay for and manage hosting for them all it was a perfect solution. I am guaranteed readers, as a bonus ego-boost, and although entering 12 CNAMEs for each one was tedious, it was also very well-worth it.
I’ve read @ev is having trouble moving Medium forward. He just fired between 50 and 150 people(Memory fails me for the exact # at this moment) which was a large chunk of the team. He’s focusing on larger publishers, to a small degree, and offers monetezation. For schlubs like me, I still have access to as many features as I use on many WordPress sites, for all the features WP offers in the form of third-party plugins and themes.
I’ve always been a big fan of writing on Medium- it’s such a nice experience. I wouldn’t want to work there though, even though it’s described as a dream job by those it suits better. San-Fran hipster types in their 20’s with fresh liberal arts degrees willing to work for nothing and computer science masters who demand a starting salary of $500,000. And options. I have an English degree and an MBA and have programmed well enough to make a handsome living out of it, but working in that scene isn’t for me. I’ve become too much like an Ev-type, if not moreso, to work for one.
So I write blather like this on Medium just because it’s so easy. I wouldn’t bother on WordPress, even though I have my main sites optimized for quick posting action. The quality of the writing wouldn’t improve, unfortunately; I still try to make my writing somewhat readable. It’s that there are so many levers and switches to adjust before posting. Here it’s write, tag and post. So I’d really hate to see Medium go away or take a wrong turn. Many Ev-types are renowned for making big, erroneous decisions at some point in their lives. I know it comes with the turf of making lots of big decisions, but it sucks for the end-users when it happens. But someone usually fills the void as quickly as needed. It’s why I also happen to like Ghost.
So back to the topic. I learned after setting up a site named octo.press which was my publishing arm that was going to hold 8 publications(thus the “octo”), that we’re only allowed to set up 7 custom domain sites & publications. So I did. And Medium, in their kindness and generosity, is waiving the fees for all domains that are already set up, including SSL and setup and everything else they include. Bam! I’m in under the wire.
octo.press — publishing home.
aBig.fish — Unpossible stories and nonsense emporium.
The Business Creative — The business of being in business as a creative.
musgrove.blog — A personal blog for drivel that doesn’t fit on mmusgrove.com (or michaelmusgrove.wordpress.com) I have way too many sites, yes.
The USA, Inc. — A conservative political blog. A fish out of water on Medium, which is rife with liberal crazies.
zxoxz — The original. Now Englishing.
Fonty Python — I like designing. I like fonts. I like Monty Python.
