Medium has made many questionable decisions (and even blunders) over the years but this is one of the biggest mistakes and a deeply disappointing choice.

You have to keep writers happy if you don’t have a monopoly on digital publishing tools (which Medium does not have anymore).

Destroying a frictionless publishing system, just for the sake of improving reader experience is a losing battle. Given the history of Medium publications you would think this would be painfully obvious.

Besides destroying one of the few good remaining features on Medium, this will not play well from a PR perspective—writers who rely upon their mobile devices to write and don’t have access to desktop devices are generally at a disadvantage to begin with. Medium, if anything, is reinforcing (and deepening) the digital divide and economic inequality that persists in the creator economy.

The last sentence of this paragraph is especially condescending “Both of these features will continue to be accessible from our desktop web app.” WOW REALLY? YOU REALLY MEAN WRITERS FOR MEDIUM WILL STILL HAVE A WAY TO WRITE ON MEDIUM?!? 🙄