Dear Writers, The Problem Will Get Fixed And We Will Get Paid
My thoughts on the current issues and backlash at Medium
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A lot of people are mad at Medium right now. Mostly because pay for writers is wonky, or was wonky. Or still is. I don’t know. It’s borked.
I get the anger and frustration. I do.
My last piece earned $2.39.
1.6K claps. Two dollars. Wow.
Never have I published an essay in the Narrative Arc and had it earn two dollars. Never. My last $2 post was a one minute read 5 years ago.
Something is going on. Obviously.
Listen, I don’t write posts like this. I come here to write. To support writers. I come here to run publications. Look at my feed you won’t find Medium this, Medium that. Medium, blah, blah, Medium. That’s not my schtick.
I’m making an exception. Because I operate several publications and there are many writers I care deeply about. And I’d like to give them an alternate perspective to what they are very likely reading right now.
Last Thursday, Scott Lamb published a post on the Medium blog explaining that Medium has been dealing with organized misuse of the Partner Program. Basically, people trying to game the system.
Organized fraud with the intention of hijacking views, which essentially is our pay since we get paid mostly based on member read time.
I’ll talk about that more in a minute, okay? But first, this:
Before Medium, I wrote on another writing site.
It’s gone now. Defunct.
Mr. Lamb might remember that site. It was called Open Salon.
Part of why it went down was spammers and scammers. It’s not the only reason. There’s never only one reason a business throws in the towel and closes its doors. But between the spam content, spam comments, incessant bot attacks, and writers having public meltdowns and writing nasty posts about who got featured and who didn’t?
Enough. Done.
I loved that place. It was a lot like here. Except there was no partner program. Like the early days of Medium, we wrote there free.
I remember the day they emailed to say they are shutting down.
There was no joy in Mudville that day.
Medium has been dealing with this for ten years, and now it’s not just spammers and scammers, there’s also the onslaught of AI garbage. And they’re still duking it out to keep the site up and running. Mad props.
Just mad props. So much respect. It’s not a small battle.
In the post on the Medium blog, Medium explained that in light of the fraudulent nonsense they are dealing with, they are trying to tweak the payment algorithm so it doesn’t reward fraudulent behavior.
I don’t need to repeat his words, you can read them yourself, here.
Since then, I’ve read several posts by members slamming Medium. Some with pretty significant followings. Some are urging writers to stop writing. Some are suggesting writers to cancel their “Friends of Medium” accounts or stop paying Medium until they stop “ripping off” writers.
Here’s the worst one. Oooh, are you calling *my* writing garbage?
No, I don’t think that’s what it means. I know my writing isn’t garbage. But I know it’s harder than most people realize to get an algorithm, a computer program, to sort slop from soup. It takes tweaks. Many tweaks.
In the 2024 summary of the year, Medium posted that in 2024, we finally hit one million paid members. And — removed 1.8 million fraudulent accounts.
I want you to think about that. For every legitimate writer, there are two buttheads who created a profile here to game the system, dupe our profiles, post spam in our comments and hijack views.
But sure, you get mad at Medium.
A lot of people are complaining that they just want more information.
“Just tell us what’s going on, Medium!”
I guess they didn’t stop to think that the people who are here for fraudulent purposes would receive that information, too? Why not just post a playbook for them? Here you go, scammers. Here’s what we’re doing. Now you can figure out how to get around it faster and easier. But hey, it will make our other writers happy that we gave them details. Yay transparency. Sigh.
They don’t tell us more detail because they can’t.
Here’s the thing. When Medium finds and shuts down those fraudulent accounts, traffic will flow back to real writers, the payment algorithm will be adjusted and things will go back to normal.
And the reason I believe that is because that’s Medium’s business model. Pay writers to draw readers who will pay to read. End of story.
And look, sometimes I’ll be one of the writers doing well, other times I won’t. Sometimes I write something that just lands, rings all the bells and other times the winds favor something or someone else. Nature of the game. Very few writers hit it out of the park every time.
No, I’m not happy about earning $2 on a piece. Not happy at all. But I don’t blame Medium for that. I’ll put that blame square on the shoulders of the people here for fraudulent purposes. They caused this. Medium wouldn’t have to tinker with knobs and levers if they weren’t dealing with that.
Here’s one other thing Medium said in the 2024 summary of the year. They said the most highlighted line of text on this whole site in 2024 was this:
“Showing up. Showing up with your whole self, showing up with your values and beliefs, showing up with what makes you unique, but above all — showing up with consistency.” (Medium 2024 recap)
That’s why I wrote this. Because I don’t just want to highlight a line about my values and beliefs. I want to live them, too. In real, and out loud.
So I am not going to stop writing. I’m not cancelling my Friends of Medium account. I’m not cancelling anything.
To my writers, I hope this is fixed soon. But I’m not going anywhere. I don’t just show up when the sun is shining. I’ll be here for you in the rain, too.
Now go write something that kicks all kinds of butt.
