<story><title>Venture capital is going to murder Medium</title><url>https://m.signalvnoise.com/venture-capital-is-going-to-murder-medium-656cbccf4829#.tkfbmwfm4</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>payne92</author><text>This, unfortunately, is the entrepreneurial version of the &amp;quot;second system syndrome&amp;quot;:   &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Second-system_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Second-system_effect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pattern:  an entrepreneur achieves some level of fame&amp;#x2F;fortune.&lt;p&gt;Then, they overcapitalize their next company (to various degrees) from high-expectation investors.  Next, they are reminded how fricking HARD startups are, and how much LUCK was really involved in their first success.&lt;p&gt;Some compound the pain by presuming the second will go like the first, and they run things fat and expensive from the start:  high headcount, expensive office, high salaries, over the top perks, etc.  And then when reality hits, the &amp;quot;corporate lifestyle downgrade&amp;quot; is especially painful.&lt;p&gt;(I&amp;#x27;m speaking from hard-learned personal experience, and I see this pattern over and over...)</text></comment>
<story><title>Venture capital is going to murder Medium</title><url>https://m.signalvnoise.com/venture-capital-is-going-to-murder-medium-656cbccf4829#.tkfbmwfm4</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dexwiz</author><text>How long before SV reinvents the paid magazine subscription? Advertising seems to have an adverse effect on content quality, mostly because it puts focus on the wrong metrics. An alternative is needed.&lt;p&gt;Medium is in a perfect position to introduce a subscription service. They have a community of both publisher and consumers, a leading platform, and the backing of VC. Turn Medium into a Patreon for writers. This does not mean a paywall. This means things like locking comments to subscribers only, direct tips to authors, chat sessions with authors.&lt;p&gt;Twitch managed to take a primarily ad based platform and layer subscriptions and donations over the top of it. Their stroke of genius, is that any subscription locked content is left up the creator (streamer) such as emotes, sub-only chat, sub games, etc. It is possible. It also helped that Twitch Prime piggy backs on Amazon Prime, but Medium may be able to find another similar service to partner with.&lt;p&gt;Also all things are cyclic. We are seeing a low point for paid subscriptions (newspapers), but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it won&amp;#x27;t come back in another form. Enhancing the social experience, not the content, via subscriptions may be a viable path.</text></comment>