Why you should not publish content on Dev.to ?
Tags: posse, web, futur, publication
Published: 2019-07-19 13:00:47

---
title: Why you should not publish content on Dev.to ?
published: true
description: What is the futur of dev.to, will it be as bad as Medium ? Will it steal your content under a paywall ? Should you only publish your content on a third party site.
canonical_url: https://slashgear.github.io/posts/stop-dev-to/
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/xk8ef7ow9woj6vskywkg.jpg
tags: POSSE, Web, futur, publication
---

First things first: I'm not an Internet warrior. I do not wish to make Dev.to's judgment here nor am I trying to convince you that this platform is right or wrong.

Instead, I would like to warn people of a trend that is endangering the web as we know it.

# TL;DR

I don't think Dev.to is a problem but how authors use it. Authors should not post their content only on dev.to. You should not publish content on Dev.to. You should **share** content on Dev.to.

## "Actually, what's your problem with Dev.to ?"


Being an author for several years, I used to share articles on my personal blog. I was quickly confronted with an obvious problem. It is difficult to "make" a small personal blog live in a web world where social networks are taking up more and more space.

By publishing on my personal blog, I had a small audience. It was difficult for my articles to get passed my first level contacts range.

I was therefore quickly tempted to find a solution to remedy this visibility problem. The solution presented by one of my colleagues seemed attractive to me.

> "Why don't you try the new Medium platform? Authors who publish on Medium have thousands of readers! Also, the editing interface is pretty cool!"


That's what I did. I stopped publishing on my personal blog and started writing and publishing my posts on Medium only. And do I regret it today. 

**And then unfortunately the story went wrong!**

Medium, in only a few months, and following some business decisions, has really become a platform to avoid.

User tracking, advertising, a paywall, a real disgusting cocktail that would make ["la quadrature du net"](https://www.laquadrature.net/en/) scream. Many people have decided to leave the platform as a result of these decisions. 

I'm not saying Dev.to will suffer the same fate. I'm not a medium, I don't have the ability to see into the future. But in practice, Dev.to remains a company and thus is tied to financial issues. And the stability of Dev.to's _Business Model_ is rather obscure.

You really have to trust the team so that Dev.to doesn't go in the wrong direction. I would very much like to hear Ben Halpern's opinion on this subject.


# So we should stop writing on Dev.to ?

**The answer is NO**

Dev.to is great, and have an amazing community. **But**, authors should not post their blog content only on Dev.to.

We should follow the **P.O.S.S.E** principle.


> Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere


Respecting it will help authors being and staying responsible of their publications on the Internet. This will:

- protect the web from hyper-centralization
- avoid having your copyrights stolen
- promote your blog


All authors should have their own personal blog where they publish the content. They can then share this content on other platforms by placing a `canonical url` pointing to their own blog page.

Dev.to has this feature, which is very rare. **I would really like this feature to be highlighted** so that the authors are aware of the problem.

For example, this post is available on [my personal blog](https://slashgear.github.io/posts/stop-dev-to/) and its content is shared here on Dev.to. 

I also worked on a project for an open source syndication platform named ["Open Blog"](https://open-blog.dev/) in order to raise awareness about not being the owner of your content. If you liked this article, come take a look at it.