Your Message is Medium’s
In yet another example of the importance of content ownership, there is drama in the land of Medium and one of the publications on the platform, Hacker Noon. 🎭
Hacker Noon has been planning to leave Medium since Medium’s revenue model changed last year, but Hacker Noon made some poor decisions around how to get contributor copyright to enable their exit. Medium responded with a big Nope! — and a valid defense of their rights to Hacker Noon contributors’ writing — but this message also clearly demonstrated why Medium is a dangerous place to publish:
And while Hacker Noon may appear to be an independent website, it is not. It is a container that exists on the Medium.com infrastructure, much like a Facebook page.
There appear to be communication mistakes on both sides, but the moral of the story is the same: there is no substitute for owning your content.
If only there were something better… 🤔
Owen Williams posted both Hacker Noon’s bad email and Medium’s bad response on Twitter.