“ (And applause from readers with a free account has no impact on the money that goes to that story.)” — Medium
Well, this is fairly obvious since readers with a free account won’t even be able to read the story so how can they clap?
This highlights one of the problems with the Medium Partner Program. Even if you are lucky enough to be in the very top tier of writers and thereby be allowed into the program, what you write will only be visible to paying members. Readers with free accounts will never be able to see your writings and this greatly hampers your ability to expand your readership. And links to your stories that you put on social media and other sites outside of Medium will, upon clicking the link, be met with a paywall message (unless they just happen to already be a paying member) and this not only will further hamper your attempts to get new readers but it will also piss some people off.
If you are a paying Medium member with thousands of followers this new system is great and will allow you to make an unspecified amount of income but it will not allow you to expand your readership outside of the membership club. For non-paying Medium members who don’t already have thousands of followers (in order for your writings to surface and be seen) and are working on expanding readership this program has little to offer.
When this program was first announced I quickly became very excited. (See my response here.) I came very, very, very close to purchasing a membership. But as I was trying to round up the money I took a closer look at the program and started seeing all the limitations. The hampering of trying to expand readership was just one of the limitations.
As a non-paying Medium user, my writing has the possibility of being seen by EVERYONE and ANYONE. And I can place links to my writing around the web and EVERYONE and ANYONE can follow those links to read my stuff. As a non-paying user I have the ability (even if it’s extremely difficult) to expand my readership and, not only that, if I want to have some money trickle in I can place a Tip Jar below my stories. This allows people to show their appreciation if they want to and are able to but they don’t HAVE TO in order to read my stuff. Therefore my readership is not limited and has the potential of expanding and I can still have some money trickle in!
And yes, I do have a little money coming in from my Tip Jar link. I would not have been able to pay my electric bill in July except for a couple of donations I received.
So the question for me is whether it is worth it to restrict the expansion of my readership to non-paying users of Medium as well as everyone else on the web in hopes of earning an income through the Partner Program by publishing exclusively to paying Medium members. And will what I earn cover the costs of membership? And will it not only cover the cost of membership but equal or surpass the amount of money derived from my Tip Jar? It could easily be a financial net loss. For someone as poverty-stricken as myself these are very serious questions.
Of course, I have not been accepted into the Partnership Program so my questions may very well be moot. I have found someone who is willing to lend me the money to pay for one year of membership but I simply cannot afford to take on any debt not knowing if I will be able to pay it — and certainly not knowing if I will even be accepted into the program in order to have the possibility of bringing in the income necessary to pay it. And am I willing to give up the income from my Tip Jar in order to hopefully be allowed into the exclusive Partnership Program?
So I have decided to put off joining the club, realizing that I may very well be better off exactly where I am now. Of course, if I win the lottery I will most definitely join the membership club…. but I will probably not use the Partnership Program because I want to expand my readership, not restrict it.
