I'm not sure what you mean. It what sense would a directory of blogs be comparable to Medium?
Yes, it's easier to setup a blog for yourself than to host and distribute 4k videos. But the principle is the same.
Assume you had the knowledge to self-host your own 4k videos, and assume cost didn't matter to you. You would still have a strong incentive to post your videos to YouTube because that's where the viewers are. The same thing goes for Medium. You can find readers there. That's the draw.
Also, Medium had (still has?) a feature where you could import your blog posts from your own site, and it would apply the proper canonical link tag for SEO. If nothing else, it's an easy way to get a backlink, though I don't know how much those matter anymore.
Yes, it's easier to setup a blog for yourself than to host and distribute 4k videos. But the principle is the same.
Assume you had the knowledge to self-host your own 4k videos, and assume cost didn't matter to you. You would still have a strong incentive to post your videos to YouTube because that's where the viewers are. The same thing goes for Medium. You can find readers there. That's the draw.
Also, Medium had (still has?) a feature where you could import your blog posts from your own site, and it would apply the proper canonical link tag for SEO. If nothing else, it's an easy way to get a backlink, though I don't know how much those matter anymore.