Matthew Butterick:

As a writer, the biggest poten­tial waste of your time is not ty­pog­ra­phy chores, but Medium it­self. Be­cause in return for that snazzy design, Medium needs you to re­lin­quish con­trol of how your work gets to readers.

Tempt­ing per­haps. But where does it lead? I fear that writ­ers who limit them­selves to pro­vid­ing “con­tent” for some­one else’s “branded plat­form” are go­ing to end up with as much lever­age as cows on a dairy farm.

I wanted to kick myself reading this only a few moments after publishing “Is Medium What Comes After Blogs?” on (where else?) Medium.

Butterick¹ rather elegantly states thoughts that have been in my head for over a year. Yes, I’ve been writing on Medium, but I’m also acutely aware of the issues raised in Butterick’s piece. For example, it smarts that when linking to an article I wrote The Dissolve referred to me as “Medium’s Jonathan Portisky.” I don’t work for Medium.

Or do I?

These thoughts are swirling around my head and require a deeper dive. It’s coming. Hopefully here, on the site I own and control.