Screwed — A Tale Of Vanishing Author Payouts

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If you are not a Medium member you can read this story here.

It is not that I am a conspiracy theorist or the like, but this whole saga about authors declining fortunes on Medium is too deliciously Machiavellian to ignore.

Almost everyday authors are complaining about the crash in their reads per story in addition to the collapse in their typical monthly payments. That is, the crash in reads applies to a significant number of authors; it is not isolated to a few authors, it is likely a site-wide issue and I think a result of deliberate actions by Medium.

I remember one of those Medium updates received in a Medium Daily Digest email which suggested that poorly performing stories would have their exposure limited without providing details about how a story is assessed as poorly performing.

The Friend-of-Medium (FoM) scheme was peddled with the message that the proceeds from the premium membership fee would result in authors receiving up to 4x the payout for reads received — bullshit!!!

It was not long after the FoM scheme that author reads, engagements and earnings started to crash. In another occasional update, readers were informed that the FoM scheme resulted in an increase in paid Medium subscribers to just over one million, and that Medium had achieved profitability.

Are we to understand that the increase in premium subscriptions received and the nose-dive in author reads/payments have directly contributed to Medium achieving profitability?

Whether by design or coincidence, Medium has received significant premium subscription revenue while also severely restricting monthly author engagements and payouts.

Is it also true that Medium has recently advertised a role offering over USD200K as has been noted by some commentators on this whole issue? Of course, it is only a coincidence that Medium is offering this level of remuneration after duping a large number of people about the benefits of its FoM scheme. The lawyers might call it fraud, but let’s not get them involved in this.

Meanwhile, Medium has launched a campaign to stamp out AI and artificial responses to stories that attempt to inflate story engagement, and presumably therefore earnings.

But is this just a classic propaganda move to mislead and divert attention from the growing angst surrounding story reads and earnings?

The whole Medium campaign against AI, and artificial engagements is a deliberate diversion. If the crash in reads and payouts is as widespread as the growing chorus of complaints indicates then that also applies to those author’s stories displaying inflated engagement — that is, they would still be getting nothing for the effort.

Nothing for the effort is not an aberration; instead, it is a structural feature of the ‘system’. Technology has not empowered authors — or anyone else for that matter — but automated nothing for the effort!