Vaguely off topic, but why do so many programmers use substack and medium to write about programming? Why not use their own programming skills to create their own website, rather than consume a service?
I used to love visiting programmers' websites, where programmer's would use their skills to not only write, but create. Now it's largely a drab stream of medium posts.
Well there's two reasons. Firstly, you're not producing a competitive advantage by writing your own site. Unless you have some specific purpose, why would you waste your time. Let's assume it takes you a couple of weeks, that's probably thousands of dollars of lost wages when you can use substack, medium or even wordpress for basically free.
Secondly, whilst these companies are trying to claim the responsibility of a peice of infrastructure, they're actually trying to be publishers, they control discoverability. You go to substack because you want to scoop of some of that substack readership, you want to be part of their "webring" and hope that you get more readership whilst they monetize your activity by telling VCs they have their boot on your neck.
I host my content on other services because I have a full time job, a family, and interests outside of tech. Even though I can do it all myself, what's the point? I get paid well into 6 figures for my tech job. What are the odds my blog will start generating that kind of revenue? Basically zero. And I can talk about things I actually do create on my blog, even if my blog is hosted on substack or medium. I just can't point to my actual blog hosting itself as something I created. But that's fine, because it isn't even a particularly interesting problem to solve. I'd be fairly unimpressed if someone was doing general purpose programming for a couple of years and couldn't throw together a barebones blog.
Came here to say exactly this. This feels like asking why my dad, who has all of the skills to build a house from scratch if he wanted to, bothered to buy one that already existed instead. Because it's easier and he's busy. I can write my own blogging platform if I wanted to, but I can't conjure one from thin air in the two minutes it takes to sign up for one that someone else already built.
There is at least some of a reverse effect by now. Because medium.com in a link already tells you to expect to get hassled about paying them just to read some marketing fluff piece.
Only so many hours in a day. Perhaps setting up and operating a blogging platform isn't how they'd prefer to use their time.
When I ran my own business, I had the skills to do everything myself: accounting, order fulfillment, everything. I created a kick-ass system that saved me hours of work for things like calculating and disbursing royalty checks (it was a publishing business). Sure, it was better than off-the-shelf software, but I would have been able to dedicate a lot more time to the core of my business—the part where I was creating truly unique value—if I had hired an accountant, or at least used off-the-shelf software.
LOL I built my own blogging platform for my personal site, but I get constant nagging for not handling permalinks in the expected way and for never implementing RSS. (lisperati.com)
I used to love visiting programmers' websites, where programmer's would use their skills to not only write, but create. Now it's largely a drab stream of medium posts.