Medium I love you
But.
I love Medium. I love everything from the minimal design to the editor, notes, the header images and the absolute pleasure of reading some genuine, thought provoking articles here. I love how can tweet bits I like, recommend it and I can jump from one piece to another. With Medium, I am in flow while reading.
But something ruined by reading utopia. The “recommend” button at the bottom now has a counter *gasp* and a list of avatars *Gasp GASP*.
No Medium. Don’t ruin my flow.
We all have a vanity of metrics. We like spikes in our Twitter following, Facebook likes and website traffic. But Medium. Oh Medium you are one place where I come to go away from all that. I come to you to look for my reading zen. Don’t put counters at the bottom and encourage vanity metrics. The number of views, reads and recommend was something between you and the writer. We the readers were blissfully oblivious to it except for those featured in Top 50/100(?) or Editors Picks. We never questioned you for it. Medium you focused on writing and reading. You get discovered. Even if you don't make it on the Editors Pick, I have discovered some great pieces of writing on Medium. The counters will encourage the need for social proof and now I find myself looking at the numbers on the counters instead of the next recommended reading. Don’t take away my reading flow. Give me back my Zen.
