Green ring of money is the reason I’m unsubscribing from medium paid membership

Disclaimer: I’m not angry or disappointed with Medium as I love the product and the people behind it and I understand this was not their intention. I’ve been a fan of Ev Williams since the time Blogger made me a blogger! I’m just providing feedback so that Medium can get better while making sure we create a progressive ecosystem online.

When I came across the medium membership and the possibility of supporting writers by contributing a small amount, it seemed like a no-brainer to me! I strongly believe that the creative community should get rewarded for all the hard work and Medium has taken a step in the right direction.

However, a few days back there was this strange realization when I was browsing Medium. My brain was categorizing medium profiles into “pays $$” and “does not pay $$” based on the green ring on the profiles. And that’s when I realized the seemingly simple green ring that Medium places on profiles of those who pay, encourages a divide based on “money” as the deciding factor.

I’m all for meritocracy. If I’m someone sharing more medium articles OR commenting more often OR reading a lot of medium articles then give me a badge and make me feel special.

But please do not make me feel alienated from everyone else because I chose to pay $5/month. I could afford, and hence I paid to support writers. But that does not mean others who do not pay aren’t contributing. And $$ definitely does not give me the right to a badge being publicly displayed. I don’t see any pride in being able to “afford” a membership.

I’ve canceled my medium membership as of today, and I’ll only subscribe again if Medium removes that green ring of money. I’ll continue to read, write and comment on Medium as this is not a fight. It’s just me being vocal about what I think companies and products can do to make the world more open and fairer.

Sam Duboff from Medium took feedback in the right way so kudos to him 👏

I’ve created a Twitter moment here so that you can read it.