Is It the End of My Blogging on Medium?
Medium is the main road, but it’s not going my way.
Today words do not come. I have ideas, and a bucket full of them.
But words don’t come, and I know why.
It’s been 14 months, writing on Medium, investing most of my writing in it.
I’m not a daily writer, but 124 articles are there, many of them with decent feedback.
But the moment I stay away from Medium, not reading or commenting, my notifications drop to zero in a few days.
The other day, I published, and earned a couple of great comments. Then, silence again. The content seen and appreciated on the publishing day was no more seen and appreciated the day after. Weird.
Is my writing so meaningless, so unattractive? Maybe. But this doesn’t discourage writers for long. Just a bad day. I’ve something to tell. Tomorrow will be better. Next piece will be better. Or not. Who cares. Sooner or later I’ll improve.
But I see a trend.
Fewer views, the new editorial line that favors some pop content — stealing views to anything else — , the effort from Medium to belittle identities, the new and baiting that prevails, like everywhere on the Web.
Is it possible that my evergreen content, like poems, are no more evergreen after a couple of days, even when they had good feedback in the first days? Is it possible that quality metrics — like fans per reads — count nothing, at the “eyes” of the “algorithm”?
Is it possible that the author counts nothing? When choosing a science fiction book, I chose Asimov, because I knew the author, and trusted him, and I read all from him. Is the author reputation a so obsolete concept? Should we feel guilty, of giving priority to a good author? Is asking too much, to expect Medium to take this into account? Yes, too much, because a newbie who does aggressive following (allowed by Medium) for a few weeks will be greeted by Medium with better results.
I don’t feel Medium like the home of my writing anymore.
And I know I’m not alone, in this feeling.
I’m here for the people, no more for the writing. It’s not my writing home. Just my circle of writing pals.
Reading, yes, but less. I’m not interested in the new content. And I see that many good authors had to explore the dark side of quantity. How to blame them. That’s the game. They have no options. Invisibility or quantity. Is there something in the middle? Maybe. Some personal stories and perspectives, for example. But I’m starting to get tired. I need more substantial reading. I need to return to prioritize books.
I’m not tired of writing. I’m tired of this hamster wheel that leads your writing life nowhere. Writing on Medium is not just writing. It’s feeding a beast. Once the beast digested your writing with a burp, it wants more. And it’s never enough. Your visibility doesn’t depend on your writing but on your daily login, and massive words count.
I need different priorities.
I want to keep writing but searching for a place where evergreen content is evergreen and doesn’t lose its leaves the moment you look elsewhere and don’t comment daily. Where quality is appreciated, and quantity is not the only metric. Where my writing doesn’t depend from a baiting editorial line maybe highlighting my work one day in an unfairly tweaked publication in competition with other publications on the same platform. Maybe that place doesn’t exist. But its time to search for it. If I have to fight, I want to fight in the right direction.
Is this the end, of my writing on Medium?
Not the end, because I still have no alternatives, but the spell is broken. The magic of Medium is gone, in my opinion. It was nice, and a great moment in the history of blogging. Hope something else, more similar to the original vision, will appear.
Time to move. Where, I don’t know.
Medium is the main road. But the main road is not going my way.
Small comfort, roads have not always been there. They were built, once.
