In Support of Medium’s Pay-Subscription Experiment as an Independent Writer
There’s a lot of context to communication as we know it in 2017
Relevant Backstory
After checking out some cool articles hosted on Medium and finding out sign up was free, in October 2015 I joined. First thing? An essay about my relationship with music over 30 years. Personal and historical, a public journal or autobiography, the experience was a good one!
So I kept writing. Between music jam sessions. Screenwriting projects. Mostly about music, occasionally other topics. My Medium account turned into an outlet for habits formed years ago. Sharing thoughts, research, opinions…
And somehow I became a Music category “Top Writer” over the course of a couple years. Some articles hit 2,000+ full reads, others of perhaps better quality in the 500 range. Normally when I post a new track on SoundCloud I’m lucky to hit 20 listens.
It’s not that I look at my statistics to influence how or what I write about, but to understand how and what I wrote about resonated or not.
Reflecting on Medium’s Approach
So I got an email from Medium asking if I’d be interested to pitch them a piece for pay — subject and rate totally up to me as it turned out — and I went through the process.
On a basic level, the portal and form style was really useful. Quick, easy to navigate, obviously set up for back-end work later. As in reviewing / collating type Editorial work. Soon after I got an automated “Thank You” email with the typical style:
Don’t call us, we’ll call you!
That made me chuckle because I’m sure they have thousands of entries to sift through just at this preliminary stage. Filtering out the wheat from the chaff isn’t work for the weak.
Very clear to me was how much preparation had been done before opening the flood gates. This process, so far from my side of the fence, has been visibly measured and structured. Not a knee jerk free for all.
The Two-Edged Sword of Idealism and Business
So back to the whole music thing real quick, one of my Dad’s bits of wisdom passed along has yet to be proven wrong:
Play to impress musicians and you’ll always be broke — don’t play above people’s heads so they can dance, and you’ll never go hungry
Then, just to lay down a hammer, he also tossed around this one he picked up over the years:
What’s good isn’t always popular, and what’s popular isn’t always good
Dang, some of these sound like I had Ben Franklin hanging around. That’s pretty awesome. He just wanted me to understand that earning money for work is more than turning a shovel — it’s thinking long term.
The goal of bringing this up is that in 2017 there really is a crisis of authority in intellectual capital in the US system. It comes down to what voices get heard because of things like how they package their payload and if it aligns with an existing worldview. That’s how clicks and revenue have stratified in a nasty way that a lot of media entities — and US populace — are bucking by subscribing more to the New York Times and giving Medium this window.
No doubt at least a half-dozen writers from all walks of life will help debut the new Medium Subscription platform. A quick pop is natural, but how long can it sustain? There’s a lot riding on doing it right for Medium.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Aww mates now we get into the sticky wicket! The US Bill of Rights #1 is about Freedom of Speech and the Press. Realistically in the US, not being associated with “Perfectly Legal to Express but Abhorrent to Contemplate” Writers / Activists / Etc is financially beneficial.
There have been many a tale of Hired Persons speaking out using their #1 right but then getting fired by their Employer / Platform / Host, because #1 right doesn’t apply in private work contracts. Blah blah blah.
Medium, considering payment and curation is on the table, can learn from Facebook.
As a content host, Facebook does enjoy some DMCA protections under Safe Harbor and they have lots of money and lawyers. That doesn’t stop bad press about illicit photo sharing of Marines or Live Streaming acts of violence. The outcry over the “Promoted Stories” was directly related to curation and the Human Element.
Personally I find the Internet Outrage Machine to be humming along akin to a Ferrari 333SP at full chat. Nit picking for offensiveness. Narrow perspective bandwagon jumping.
If Medium’s Subscription service employs any form of curation, by no fault of the company or the quality of the material selected, the Internet will scrounge for anything they can on Writers to discredit them. Potential personal harassment is at stake, depending on how sharp one pokes at powerful and vindictive subjects.
Getting paid for an article now ain’t necessarily worth it long term
The practical reality is Medium probably has a checklist of what they are looking for in the mode: Are willing to engage Writers with Editorial feedback about toning down the appeal of swear words in Titles/Content? Will they forbid links to YouTube videos? The Can/Can’t dynamic does matter in the new platform concept.
God Bless Chuck Berry (RIP)
An aside: Before Chuck Berry played his Hall of Fame ceremony, he made sure to collect his $2,500 in cash up front. The money was delivered in a brown paper bag. He performed. When he passed away in 2017, his business dealings had amassed an estimated $50 million of assets in his estate.
My closing analogy is about how Chuck Berry wanted to think ahead and make agreements and money with those priorities. Medium has a chance to change the “market expectation” about how a Publisher / Contractor / TBD operates. Payments, assistance, looking ahead…this is an experiment worth watching to see which rise up from the Minor to the Major league.
