Medium has become the default place for people to post ideas, as if it were as open as the web, but it is not.

#### Why should we turn blogging over to a silo?

We've given up user control of video, tweet-size posts, we're halfway there with audio (with Soundcloud and iTunes), why should we turn blogging over to a silo too?

1. The costs are so low. Free hosting of text files and images isn't worth a lot these days.

2. Medium has a nice domain name. But it's certainly not the only nice domain out there.

3. They say Medium builds flow. I have my doubts. But freedom can build flow too. Maybe it can't get you donors and VC. Maybe those people should just use Medium. But I won't. And I won't point to posts there, either. Because I love the web, and I don't want to sell it out for a little flow and to save the fraction of a cent it costs to host a text file and image.

3. The open source world just needs the will to answer the challenge.

#### Why not?

There are good, smart, generous people working at Medium, and I don't want to say or imply that they would do anything bad for the web. They wouldn't. But they're just working there, it isn't about them.

It's about the system. The way software is financed. It makes it possible to make billions of dollars by controlling the flow of ideas. It's been done before, by the same people who are behind Medium.

But that only works if we give our consent.

#### We can do better!

I put my best work out there, as a way to try to solve the problem, but unless other people embrace it, and build on it, it won't happen.

Consider this an ad for MyWord Editor. It's MIT Licensed. It's my gesture of support for the open web. An incentive for the people who own Medium to not try to turn blogging into another silo. Please help.