- But by the end, I realized I disagree deeply with Medium about the ethics of design. And by ethics, I mean something simple: though Medium and I are both making tools for writers, what I want for writers and what Medium wants couldn’t be more different. Medium may be avoiding what made the typewriter bad, but it’s also avoiding what made it good. Writers who are tempted to use Medium—or similar publishing tools—should be conscious of these tradeoffs.
So, a few words about that.
Note: Title editorialized because The Billionare's Typewriter gives you no context unless you already know some of this backstory.
When formerly ethical news institutions make up stuff they think might be true, or ought to be true ... and then publish it anyway under an "anonomous sources" smokescreen ... no other "tools" are needed. Writer at <a href="https://essaydune.com/">essay writer</a>, Aaron Webb.
This summarizes the issue well. I suppose as long as you are free to download your work off of medium and to publish it elsewhere, then medium has the advantage of offering a publishing platform, whereas most blogging tools do not. Ease of use is one thing they are selling, but the real carrot is reach. For that reason, Medium works well for a certain type of writer, and certain kinds of writing. However, it won't work for John Gruber or Jason Kottke. It's interesting that Evan Williams doesn't play up the reach, at least I haven't come across him doing so.In fact, its ethics are actually worse than the traditional typewriter. Why? Because Medium’s homogeneous design has nothing to do with limitations of the underlying technology (in this case, the web). As discussed above, it’s a deliberate choice that lets Medium extract value from the talent and labor of others.
Just tried to post this, I'm sorry I missed your post from 27 days ago, it's a damn good read imo.