How Medium Changed My Writing Style

And how the attention economy is changing style in general

Photo by Dim Hou on Unsplash

Earlier this week I published my 300th story on Medium.
When I go back and look at some of my earliest stories, or when I re-read things I wrote before I joined Medium in 2019, I notice some interesting ways my writing has evolved. Even more fascinating, though, are the ways that evolution mirrors changes in other creative industries like music.

If you’ve been writing for several years on platforms like Medium or Substack, and particularly if you did a lot of writing before these platforms emerged, some of the trends I’ll describe may sound familiar.
If I’m right, that’s no coincidence.

The relationship between creator and audience is always mediated by social structures shaped by things like economic incentives and cultural norms. These structures, in turn, are influenced by technology.

So in this essay, I want to take a look at some of the ways my writing style — and perhaps yours as well — has changed over the last few years.
Then I’ll describe some similar changes in the music industry.

As we’ll see, trends like the democratization of content creation, subscription versus ownership models for…