The Platform Era Is Ending

This Week In Writing, we discuss whether you should still own a website if you publish on Medium or Substack.

Justin Cox
The Writing Cooperative
6 min readFeb 28, 2023

A human figure covered in dust and half the face is devolving into cobwebs
“Facebook covered in dust and cobwebs” by Justin Cox and Midjourney

Last week, Shannon posted a question in My Writing Community. She asked, “If you write on Medium, do you also need a WordPress blog?” Over the last few months, my answer to this question has changed. But before we get to that, let’s take a quick look at what platforms are up to.

Twitter wants you to pay to play; now, Meta is following suit. Want a secure experience? Your posts to appear in people’s feeds? The platforms want you to pony up. These features used to be free. Now, they’re an upgrade. Why?

Ad revenue is done. User engagement is down. The platforms are trying to hold onto profits without providing additional features. You ask me, it seems like a losing game.

However, there are people who will pay. After all, Twitter and Facebook have been around for nearly two decades. I joined Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2008. That’s a lot of ingrained history, and these companies are literally banking on the fact that we all find it too difficult to leave.

Mastodon proves leaving is not only possible but much more fun.

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Published in The Writing Cooperative

Medium’s largest collection of advice, support, and encouragement for writers. We help you become the best writer possible.

Written by Justin Cox

I help writers and nonprofits grow. Editor of The Writing Cooperative. Contact at JustinCox.com

Responses (47)

What are your thoughts?

So, to answer Shannon’s question, yes, you should still have a website if you write on a platform like Medium or Substack

As someone who has just started medium, I realize that the audiences are really different. Those who read on medium are not on substack and are not necessarily on twitter. It's as if each system has its own solid core of habitués that can only be…...

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Thank you, Justin, for an insightful article. Lately, I’ve been debating whether I should close my GoDaddy website to save money every month. But your thoughtful article affirms to me “If you publish on your site, then you control the…...

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Thanks for this article. I’ve often pondered the same thing. I’ve been writing on my website for a few years now with my reads and views bouncing along the bottom of, well, zero really. But I keep writing because I love it. And then a wiser person…...

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