Member-only story

I Think It’s Time to Reconsider the Friend of Medium Program

I don’t know where the money is going

Stephen Sovie
Never Stop Writing
2 min readJan 8, 2025

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Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

Today is the eighth day of January, and I haven’t earned enough money to cover my FOM membership fee. If things continue as they have been since the first of the month, it will be another seven days before I have the $15.

My views and reads have more than doubled compared to December, but my earnings have been less than 3 cents a read. I realize that by being a member of the FOM program, I am helping other writers earn more. Now, it seems that it is helping me and others earn less.

I can’t help but wonder where my $15 is going. Are some writers I engage with making more money than usual? Or did some members of the Medium staff get a raise? I really can’t figure it out.

At this time, I don’t think it’s worth having to write and publish for half the month to pay the $15 membership fee. The lower $5 tier makes much more sense.

I have read that Medium is experiencing delays in posting some stats, including earnings, but this doesn’t address the drastic drop in earnings that most of us have experienced. It would be nice to know if Medium has permanently changed how earnings are determined or if lower earnings will be the norm. A little transparency would be nice.

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Never Stop Writing
Never Stop Writing

Published in Never Stop Writing

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Stephen Sovie
Stephen Sovie

Written by Stephen Sovie

A liberal retiree who loves writing about politics, social issues, pets, and my life experiences. You can buy me coffee here: https://ko-fi.com/stephensovie

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