It’s our platform
Medium Writers Need To Unite And Protect Our Right To Criticise The Platform
Medium isn’t a literary soup kitchen, you knobs
As a relative newbie to Medium (I’ve been here for three years), I’ve seen a few of the seasonal wars.
The first was right at the height of cancel culture when, among a chorus of cold, tear-stained literary eyes, Medium decided that you weren’t allowed to be mean to each other anymore.
Next, there was a time when getting distributed by Medium meant the end of your stories:
Then, as Medium began dehumanising its staff and relying on its algorithm known as ‘Steve’ more and more, it began prioritising so-called fresh, new content over quality content, and articles about how to be successful on Medium started to dominate the landscape. And Medium forgot about your existence if you didn’t continue to work and post every day like a dangerous criminal making Victoria’s Secret crotchless knick-knacks in prison (It still does btw)
But as views on stories started dropping lower, everyone was saying no one sees their stories anymore. Still, we had moronic fundamentalists to whom it was also happening, telling people to fuck off if they don’t like it.
So, finally, I lost it and wrote this:
And sure, the language got a bit spicy in that one, and some people I knew went a little quiet after that. But honestly, things didn’t improve. It has just gotten worse.
Now Medium has introduced the Boost system (aka The Stubbelbine Reacharound), where certain publications apply for curation on your behalf.
And honestly, my views dropped so much that I just wanted to know whether the algorithm was punishing me. So I wrote to them and asked.
But I heard NOTHING back.
And maybe you are one of those bastards thinking, stop going on about it, would you, Frank? But the answer to that is,
Fuck you.
Why should we?
Do you genuinely think Medium is a charity case that is paying you money for writing out of the goodness of their hearts?
Some people are so desperate to get paid $2 a week for their writing that they’ll defend this platform like the Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail.
You pay a monthly membership here. It’s not a free platform.
Medium is a PRODUCT that you pay for. You are a customer, and if something doesn’t work as a customer, you complain. That’s normal, you toolbags.
Medium’s entire fortune every month comes out of the writers’ pockets on this platform.
And don’t think for a minute it distributes your entire five bucks, either. The fact that they will pay you $2.44 for a referral, and that is still worth their corporate sweat, tells you how little of your five bucks they actually distribute.
And I’m not complaining about that. They are a company, and they want to make money. I’m just saying stop changing the system in shitty ways that punish writers.
And it sickens me that so many writers turn against you when you write criticism of the platform in an attempt to incite change.
Is this the new world we live in now? Are we too afraid of being pepper-sprayed by the Medium police that we cease to protest and instead bow down like fundamentalists and say thank you for distributing a small portion of our own money back to us when we slave away to write the equivalent word count of a novel every month?
Views are genuinely dropping, and it’s not just me.
And if you think there is still a system in the world where people make profits that is not at risk of manipulation and corruption, then you need to wake up and smell the turmeric lattes.
I’m not saying Medium is corrupt. I’m just saying,
put out the milk, and the snakes will come.
And if the views and, therefore, the earnings of the good writers I know are all dropping, then where is the rest of that dosh going?
You can’t help but notice that the power of ‘boost’ makes a massive difference now. During the distribution years, my average views per story were around 200, and distribution would increase by 30–50% (when it worked).
To give you an idea of the difference now,
- The average view of my last five stories is 21.8 views
- The only story I ever got boosted received 1,800 views.
That’s an 8200% difference.
And this gaping difference is being sold as a good thing
But when the distribution is in the hands of a few elite publications, and the corporation itself ultimately decides where those views go, and the money changing hands is in the millions, don’t you have to wonder?
According to Kristina God, a story chosen to be boosted is based on the following:
The updated Distribution Standards in a nutshell — these are the types of stories Medium is looking for:
- constructive
- original
- written from relevant experience
- well-crafted
- memorable.
I have four questions:
- What does constructive mean?
- And what is relevant experience?
- And who the fuck are Medium to tell people what to write?
- Shouldn’t the readers be deciding what is good writing?
I have almost 1400 followers on Medium. So why have my last three stories had an average of 18 views per story? And why do people that used to always read my stories never see them anymore?
It might be because Medium sets ‘recommended reading’ as the default in people’s feeds. This means that Medium can control what people are reading rather than readers controlling their own reading by following people.
It’s also because I like to self-publish. And self-publishing means you don’t have a chance on this platform anymore.
Despite my criticism, I love writing on this platform, and I love the writers on here genuinely sweating blood to try and get a few bucks for their work.
But I reserve the damn right to complain about the system that I pay for with my money and my sweaty fingers on the keyboard for literally hours every month.
And you should all reserve that right, too, if any of you are even reading this or if you even care at all.
