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pastor_bob

Free Digital Media "Platforms" are unprofitable

Look what happened to:

1. Gawker

2. The Awl and The Hairpin

2. PolicyMic

3. Vice subsidiaries like Refinery29

It's funny, all these places tried to reinvent the tech stack too. I remember Medium being a clojure shop

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Can't Medium generate revenue through ads? They have the network effects so they should be able to place ads on the website to keep it running like the other social platforms do. They could even split the ad revenue with writers.

Just ideas.

If they would add ads, writers would ask for a revenue, too. If they'd do that, they would ask for a fair share, considering their amount of contribution. Means: how many articles they write. And with that you are back to the status quo. Dropping "get rich fast posts" and soul-less "top x lists".

The current economics of ads on the internet are such at "just add ads" is no longer viable alone like it was a decade ago.

That's why nearly every content creator that normally relies on ads has additional revenue sources. (Patreon/Sponsorships)

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