Blog on own domain vs third party platform like medium ?

Having spoken to many people about this, I strongly recommend setting up your own site and publishing your content there first so that you're building value on something you own and control. I would then use Medium's syndication tool to syndicate your posts to Medium. If you do this you get the best of both world's: SEO on your owned personal domain + access/syndication to the Medium network.

You can set up a free site with domain on Unstack (note, I'm a co-founder) or roll your own WP site.

I would prefer own domain. Though it would be difficult initially but its good in the long run. You can make a side income from it and it time permits you can create your own business out of it.

I have covered the topic in detail in an article on my blog: Owning a blog or guest posting

As a blogger I recommend you to go with your own domain only.

I've actually separated my blog and my newsletter to their own domains, but the email lists are connected. I'm using Ghost for both. My NL is at The Stakeholder Report.

100% your own domain. If your going to try and sell or monetize anything you want to be in complete control - if you own the domain you can do that. As for the comment I saw about posting on both medium and your own blog - definitely not a bad strategy. I've looked into it a bit and it's usually recommended that you post it initially on your own domain, and then later (like 1-2 months) repost the article on Medium and link it to the original. The purpose for this is to try to reach a new audience and extend the traffic life on the original post.

Best of luck! Feel free to lmk if you encounter any questions while setting up your site - I just did it and I ran into plenty 😂

I have a github pages blog which has gotten something like 100-200k clicks over a few years via HN / reddit / lobsters, which is not as much as it sounds.

Biggest regret is not pushing email signups earlier. (I use tinyletter but platform probably doesn't matter).

Email list lets you own your distribution so you don't rely on aggregators for traffic (they're hit or miss), but also lets you have a consistent audience whom you know, like, and write for. 100 high-quality readers who like you and give feedback, and share your stuff once in a while, are more valuable than 10k bounces from strangers.

Haven't used medium but feel you on 'ready made reach'.

Like most people have said, if you have a vision for a blog and want to maintain it over the years then your own domain is a good investment.

However, if you want to use your blog mostly to highlight other service(s) or app(s) you are making then I would recommend Medium if you are willing to join as a member for $5 a month. I went the Medium route and have earned money with multiple blog posts getting over 10k reads. You can also start on Medium to refine your vision and gain followers before launching your own blog.

For those of you who don't know Medium recently changed their business model so that you are paid by the amount of time other members spend reading your content. So, lets say a member only reads your blog post this month then you get all $5 (minus Medium's cut) of that member's membership fee. If a member reads your article for 3 minutes and someone else's article for 2 minutes then you get 3/5 of that member's $5 membership fee. So, the only way to make money on the platform is to engage other members to read your content which has cut down on spammy articles. You also get a friend link if you publish behind the paywall that non-members can use to read the article without the paywall popup. You can share this as much as you want on your own site or social media. Non-members also get 3 free views of paywall content a month or something (https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017581433-About-the-metered-paywall).

If you go the Medium route make sure you submit to a popular publisher like BetterProgramming or TheStartup to maximize engagement (they are picky, I've had some rejections, but think that is good for feedback).

Here's a data point.

I never share Medium links and try not to visit the platform whenever it's clear a link leads there. The reason is Medium has probably the most obnoxious nags to subscribe or register I've ever seen.