Why Is Everyone Here Selling Something?
Navigating Medium: Marketing, Clickbait and Monetization — Is This What You Signed Up For?
Disclaimer: Having a strong, unpopular opinion is never a good way to make friends, especially if you are the newest member of the community. Nonetheless, I have never been a crowdpleaser, so here I go for the first time on Medium.
This isn’t meant to sound like a boring rant, anyway please hear me out.
Medium is cool for its content, community, and the whole idea behind it: a social network for readers and writers.
It’s amazing how many sensitive and heartfelt people open themselves to strangers or resonate with other writers in a mutual exchange of meaningful stories.
But then I open my feed, and suddenly everything seems like a public advertising space.
My dashboard is full of sensational headlines that look like clickbait wars on news websites or the Google/Bing homepage. The “How to make x figures” stuff, the “This simple hack will make you the next Stephen Hawking” and the like.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the marketing idea behind those.
With thousands of stories and writers, one must find a way to stand out and get their sh*t read.
