I think most people on HN have set up their own domain and web services before or have the ability to do so without having to do much learning. So I don't think it's a stretch to say that on the scale of difficult things to do, hosting your own blog is very low.
But Medium is just so easy. It's trivially easy. It's uncluttered, clean, easy to just write an article and publish it or share for editing. The fonts are easy to read anywhere, it's fast, easy to find through Google because of @handles and works seamlessly on all devices. Oh and it's "free."
I've tried to figure out how to make self hosting this easy but honestly it escapes me. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure that out.
It's not uncluttered. Do you really want someone arriving at your article to be greeted with a big modal banner offering them to "make things official", as well as the un-hidable top and bottom banners?
...complaints about Medium's obnoxious banner and general drop in UX quality over the years are among the constants in the comments when they're posted here...
But Medium is just so easy. It's trivially easy. It's uncluttered, clean, easy to just write an article and publish it or share for editing. The fonts are easy to read anywhere, it's fast, easy to find through Google because of @handles and works seamlessly on all devices. Oh and it's "free."
I've tried to figure out how to make self hosting this easy but honestly it escapes me. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure that out.