Sarah Gray
Aug 26, 2017 · 2 min read

I’m not sure that’s true tbh.

I’m sure that Medium intends to use claps from paying members to help determine payouts to writers.

But when you’re talking about something that impacts business decisions (like whether a professional writer chooses to invest in using Medium based on the opportunity to make money), you need to look at legal agreements rather than PR and marketing statements.

Medium’s Partner Terms allow Medium to pay writers (or not) whatever Medium wants, based on whatever factors Medium wants to consider.

Medium doesn’t have to tell writers what all the possible factors in determining payments even are.

It’s not fair for professional writers or publishers to incorrectly think it’s as cut and dry as “paid according to value of content to readers, as measured by claps.”

Platform subscriptions usually offer clear, objective metrics on which payments are made to creators — if you’re on Amazon prime or Spotify or YouTube red, you know how your payments are calculated; they might use less-than-desirable metrics but because you know what they are you can plan accordingly.

On Medium, at this point writers don’t get that — hell, even if they did know the “various performance factors,” Medium can change its mind about those factors (and not tell anyone) at anytime.

I know I sound like a bit of a jerk — these are good people, with good intentions — but professional writers and publishers can’t reasonably rely on intentions or statements made in posts.

The only thing they can reasonably rely on in making business decisions related to Medium are the actual legally-enforceable terms of the Partner Program — and those terms absolutely don’t match the statements that people are making.

)

    Sarah Gray

    Written by