I am sorry for the off topic comment but I can't even read this article because medium now shows me a "Sign up for an extra read" popup without any way of closing it. Medium is going so down the tubes, it's become impossible for me to read anything there. Does anyone have a way to bypass the sign up pop up?
I use the Firefox extension "Hide fixed elements", which is not only useful for hiding these kinds of modals but also overlarge headers and cookie warnings.
That usually works but in this case, it’s not just a modal. It doesn’t show the article unless I sign up. No way to dismiss it either. It’s different than the modals I used to get last week.
search for the extension "make medium readable again". I've come to see medium and google captcha as mental filters for judging the overall technical competence of the firm deploying them.
That community of content creators chose the platform for the benefits of discovery, SEO and convenience. While I agree that there's great content on Medium, those upsides come with a few downsites for content consumers and losing a few of them comes with the territory. It's still a net positive for creators anyway, otherwise Medium wouldn't be a thing.
if the author cares so little about their readers that they choose to distribute their content on medium, there's a good chance that content isn't worth reading.
An author may care so much about readership that they value reaching 50 million people, over a few dozens, if the price to pay is some inconvenience with the medium (see what I did there?)
One easy way to communicate to said community that Medium provides a terrible experience for readers is by reducing page visits so that they start wondering about it and look for alternatives.
