No stripe — No pardner! — UPDATED!!!
To be taken for a ride or to get off?
I have been told repeatedly that I should not stop writing simply because the @medium partner program still refuses to include those of us in India. While they are okay to take our money if we choose to have a paid subscription, when it comes to paying back, they cite the inadequacies of Stripe.
India is not the backwaters that Medium wants us to believe it is. When it comes to digital payments, we clocked higher than China and the US in 2020. Yet here we are.
It has started to look like a problem with intent.
It has started to look like a problem with ethics at Medium.
Do I need the money? Not today — no.
Am I able to afford a subscription that costs about the same as two newspaper subscriptions here for the month? So far, yes.
My wife reminded me that I have written for free for years on blogger and elsewhere and I should not make it bigger than it is … but I guess it is the feeling of being taken for a ride.
Perhaps I should keep shut and move back to one of the other platforms. It does not feel right to do that. Medium seemed to be a good thing … and perhaps it is worthwhile to spend some time fighting for what is good, to keep it that way?
Medium Staff, Medium, are you listening? Do you have anything to say?
P.S. Hello everyone, it feels good to write again — even if the topic itself is something I would rather not write about.
Update1: 20th October 2021: I have contacted Stripe support in India to understand whether this is a technical or legal issue and if so, what they are doing about it and by when they think this will get resolved.
Update 2: 2nd October 2021: Response from Stripe
They also provided the following links:
They also provided a product feedback form in a subsequent email so that they can prioritize the feature. I have filled that in and have asked them to share a generic link to the form that I can share here for more people to provide feedback.
In the meanwhile, I request all authors on medium that are impacted by this to open a stripe account and raise a customer support query for this so that they know just how many of us are impacted and prioritize this.
There is no response from Medium, Medium Staff as to why they cannot tie up with a second payment partner that is supported in India, Brazil and the rest of the world, or whether they are pushing Stripe to move faster on this.
Update 3: 21st January 2023
There has been no change to the status of the medium partnership program. I do not understand all the issues at hand clearly but one thing that is clear is that there are significant regulatory hurdles and the problem is probably not one of intent on the part of medium or stripe. This article describes some of the problems and it seems that there have been further changes since then, not making things any easier for cross border payments into India.
So, I have decide to wind down my protest, renew my medium subscription and restart writing, like before — as and when time permits.
In the meantime, Medium has rolled out the beta for tips. It seems that linking patreon to payoneer allows payments to be setup. Though, due to recent regulatory changes, recurring payments/subscriptions could fail at patreon for creators based out of India.
So, I have set that up and decided not to put any of my posts behind the medium paywall till things get sorted out (hopefully sooner).
