Ending our Medium integration
Sometime in the past few weeks, Medium abruptly deleted third-party access to their publishing API. There was no warning before, or notice after, this happened — apps just stopped working (including ours).
When anyone on Write.as tries to interact with Medium now, the response we get from their API is plain:
Application not found (6005)
So unfortunately, we've removed our Medium integration. You'll no longer see the option to connect a Medium account or cross-post to one in the editor.
We contacted Medium's team to see how we could regain API access. But then, after a little more thought, we decided to make this change permanent, and not continue support for their platform, regardless of what their response is.
Update 11:33am EST: we received a response from Medium, though it's still confusing:
We recently experienced an interruption with API, and the ability to generate new oAuth-based applications has been restricted. I have reenabled that feature.
This doesn't really explain why our 2-year-old integration suddenly stopped working (we didn't need to generate a new application). So I'm asking for more clarification.
Our original goal in supporting the Medium API was to create more bridges between different web silos. That was part of the promise of Medium back when it started, after all — a network of blogs, instead of individual islands. When they opened their API, we knew that would be the perfect chance to help writers connect with more readers.
We trusted that Medium might not do what many VC-funded platforms have done before: open an API, attract developers and users, grow, then shut it all down. Unfortunately, that's exactly what they did. And unlike their previous pivots, they didn't even give the courtesy of a small heads-up.
It's this pattern of disregard for everyone else, as they clamor for a business model, that is mostly driving our decision to part ways. They've done a lot of good for the web (and indeed helped inspire Write.as). But we believe there's a better way forward, and based on their decisions, they probably won't be a part of it.
With this change, we'll be honing the focus of our product even more, evolving the open source software behind it all, and continuing to build a sustainable, human-centric platform for publishing on the web.