Linked: “Anywhere but Medium”

via Dave Winer’s Scripting:

I guess the thought is that it’s wasteful to start a blog if you’re not sure you’re going to post that often. It’s something of a paradox, because blogs are not large things on the storage devices of the hosting companies. If they’re doing it right, a blog is smaller than the PNG image in the right margin of this post. They’re tiny little things in a world filled with videos and podcasts and even humble images. Text is very very very small in comparison.

and

Because I cross-post my stories to Medium through RSS, you will be able to read this there. I guess they won’t recommend it. It probably won’t appear on the front page of Medium. See there’s the other problem with ceding a whole content type to a single company. Since you’re counting on them not just to store your writing, but also build flow for it, the inclination is to praise them, to withhold criticism.

and

I only want to point to things that I think have a chance at existing years from now. And things that are reasonably unconflicted, where I feel I understand where the author is coming from.

and

We can avoid this, it’s not too late. You have a choice. Post your writing to places other than Medium. And when you see something that’s interesting and not on Medium, give it some extra love.

and

Is it necessary that a Silicon Valley tech company own every media type? Can we reserve competition in the middle of the web, so we get a chance for some of the power of an open platform for the most basic type of creativity — writing?

Dave Winer is a smart guy. He’s been around for a while and has seen this happen before. Dave remembers Mahalo, Digg, Google Reader, Delicious, Blogger, Livejournal. I remember them all as well and we know that centralized media owned by one company is a bad idea. It always fails and your writing goes away with it.

Blogging is so old-school now. Yet, it’s the only place on the web that I own my server, my connection to it and the content on it. It’s mine and I can put anything I want here. Maybe no one will read it but it’s mine. That’s a very rare thing today. Go read Dave’s blog and support an independent writer.

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