Medium Wants Fewer Writers and More Readers
Sure, but where is the money?
Writers love to talk and write about themselves, but the problem is that most of what they say is boring. There’s a reason why “90% of self-published books sell less than 100 copies¹.”
That’s why you see so many navel-gazing memoirs and other “funny” stories that aren’t particularly interesting or funny on Medium (read my stories for some examples).
Writing good stuff is HARD.
That’s also why many writers use a read-for-read system. The untold logic goes as follows: “Your story was decent enough for me to take the time to read it IF you take the time to read mine. But if you don’t read back, let’s not kid ourselves; your story was average, and I can easily find 200 like it on Medium.”
The problem is that some writers misinterpret this transactional relationship as “I’m a fantastic writer, and I should be on the NYT bestseller list. Also, all my stories should get a boost.”
Generally, writers have a biased perspective about Medium.
They think it’s full of people like them when the majority (thankfully) are readers who never write. Readers don’t want to read low-quality stuff.
