Article-dump sites take away your editorial control, and reduce you to one voice amongst many. You have no influence over who’s up before or after you, and you have no deeper identity. There’s no sense of inviting the reader in to try what you have to offer, then hoping they’ll stay for more.
I think a lot of people haven’t made that realisation, and that’s a sad thing. Your words, and the stories they tell, deserve more than being the latest morsel on a buffet of tiny, fashionably-circular author photos, to be sampled and then forgotten as the next thing rolls around. Where’s the identity? Where’s the commitment?
Own Your Words
Matt Gemmell writes why he doesn’t post on sites like Medium and instead writes for his own site. This has been my reluctance from the very beginning, when sites like these have appeared, not just for words, of which I write infrequently, but also with my photographs, which I used to share a great deal. This isn’t an activity I pursue with the interest I once had but I still hesitate to share much of anything on services that stand to gain, how ever small, from my thoughts, my content. But mostly it’s a question of warmth and ownership. It just feels different reading words amongst the noise and crassness of Facebook compared to a purpose built space.