Medium: a Failing Score
I just came across a story here on Medium — recommended for me — with the headline “I got 500,000 Hits in 5 Minutes.”
Sounds too good to be true, right? It was. Yes, I clicked through, but for good reason. I needed to confirm my suspicion that perhaps Medium might be getting rather lax in their claim ‘Where Good Ideas Find You.’
They are. As in, failing to live up to providing good ideas. We — all of us members who trusted that promise — signed up to share in it. Some of us even pay to access everything ‘good’ on Medium.
What am I (are we) paying for if not the reasonable expectation that Medium adheres to some defined standard of quality in itself and what it permits onto the platform?
Or was your promise hollow, Medium?
This is bullshit. I have standards, even if you don’t.
But I expect you to find some because I’m not willing to pay for the clickbait crap I can wade through for free on the web.
Now, the piece from the headline above wasn’t the first of its kind I’ve seen on here, but it was the first time Medium ‘recommended’ such garbage. Seriously?
I’m sure the platform has algorithms to sort through and recommend articles, so how hard would it be to sift out this trash?
Or is it part of a larger problem?
Last week, Medium announced it would no longer alert writers when their work was chosen for further distribution.
Why the f*** not? It’s not even a thing they would have to add — only something they had no reason to remove.
Alerting writers is a sign of respect and acknowledgment of their value to the continued success of Medium as an enterprise. Now the party’s over?
I asked exactly this on a post by Medium’s Scott Lamb on the 22nd — nearly a week ago — and have yet to get an answer.
But take these two subjects together and there are two options:
Either Medium’s leadership has absolutely no consideration for its members, to the point of withdrawing their respect and abandoning their standards for what their platform allows or, Medium is failing in the face of growing competition.
Make sure you back up everything you posted, because if Medium goes down, it will be without warning and, once gone, it is gone forever.
