Medium Cares More About Marketing Than Quality
The new Medium Partner Program rule requiring 100 followers suggests as much
One year ago, I watched The Queen’s Gambit and was suddenly inspired to write a piece about it. I quickly authored it and tried sending it off to a few newspapers and magazines, with no luck. Then, I stumbled across Medium. I could quickly self-publish and be paid based on my number of readers. I loved it, and continued to publish on Medium whenever the inspiration struck. I typically publish about once a month, and although most of my pieces only earn $1–2 at most, I did strike gold and earn $20 with one piece! Like a gambler winning their first hand, that first taste of success got me hooked.
However, I fear that new writers will not have the same experience that I did. Medium recently announced that writers need to have at least 100 followers to place their articles behind a paywall. I suspect this is for two reasons: 1) Medium does not want to waste its time making small payouts and 2) Medium wants authors to market their writing themselves, rather than Medium assisting with the marketing.
This means that new authors will likely need to write for a year or two for free before they have enough followers to place their articles behind a paywall. I hope they will be sufficiently…
