NON-FICTION | ESSAY | OPINION
Friends With Benefits
Can we keep earning without becoming Medium Friends?
The other day, my friend Agent Ranch Hand (Ranch) posted a link to the article about the new Friends of Medium roll out and I commented “What the fuck?!” on his post after reading it. My husband who sat next to me started arguing with me that it will not be a bad thing and that I was overreacting. Ranch called me a few minutes later and basically agreed with everything my husband was saying, if maybe in a slightly gentler way. Then he changed the subject to make me laugh and get my mind off it. But it’s a few days later now and my mind is back on this little Medium change as friend after friend is shelling out triple the membership in hopes of making four times the profits.
My theory, the moment I read about the new membership option, is that it’s going to result in non-participating writers, the ones choosing to stick with their basic $5 account, to be shunned by the rest of their community. Their stories are going to be avoided, their royalties will drop, and they will be pressured into shelling out three times as much just to continue making the profit that they used to make. In essence, it will force everyone to pay the new price just to keep writing on Medium profitable. My husband called me cynical and ridiculous…
