Blunt Talk About The New "Friends Of Medium" Membership Tier

The program just rolled out and people are already getting it wrong

This week, Medium introduced a new membership tier called “Friends of Medium.” It’s $15 USD per month or $150/year. They posted an announcement on the official blog in case you missed it. The roll out was just completed yesterday.

There are over 200 comments so far and most are favorable. But if you scroll down the comments far enough, you start to see confusion. People are asking what they “get.”

Here’s the short answer. Nothing. It’s not about getting. It’s about giving.

There’s a formula by which writers on Medium get paid. It’s based on read (and listen) time, claps, highlights, comments, and follows. Let’s call that the base pay rate, okay?

I signed up immediately. So now if I read your story, you get paid base rate x4.

That’s how it works. When “friends of Medium” read paywalled stories on Medium, the writer gets base rate x4. That’s it. That’s all the new tier is about. Supporting writers a little more, if you can afford to.

Here’s why I signed up for the upgrade. I run three publications on Medium and I’m a boost nominator. So now when I read stories in my publications, my writers get paid base rate x4. When I read stories to see if I should nominate them for a boost, the writer gets paid base rate x4. Everything I read pays the writer base rate x4.

There is one other perk.

Friends of Medium can now generate “friend of medium” links to any paywalled story on Medium and the writer will get compensated for external views if (and only if) the non-member views come from a “friend of Medium” link.

How much, I don’t know. Is it paid at the same rate? I don’t know. They were fuzzy on that. Clarity doesn’t seem to be their forte.

All I know is they said friends of Medium can send non-member views and the writer gets compensated for those reads. I figure ‘some’ compensation for external views is better than ‘no’ compensation.

Let me give you a case scenario. I stumble across a well written story. So I create a friend link and share it on substack. That writer now gets compensation for external traffic that comes from my link. Not any link. Just links from a “friend” of Medium.

Not everyone can do that. People at the $5 tier cannot create a friend link to any stories except their own. And no, you cannot use that feature to get paid for your own external traffic. Medium already clarified that when some meta post said otherwise without checking. You can only use it to support another writer, not yourself.

That’s what the entire program is about. Supporting writers.

Apparently, Medium has been asking new members why they signed up. The most common answer was to support writers. So the “friends of Medium” tier allows people to support writers a little more. Base rate x4. Plus, pay for non-member views.

One commenter was mad. She said she should get to decide who links to her stories. I don’t know what internet she uses, but on my internet, anyone can link to anything. Asking permission to link to a story doesn’t happen on the internet I use.

The only difference is that now she can earn compensation for non-member views if a friend of Medium shares her post off Medium. Because let’s be honest, people “share” links to posts on Facebook and heaven knows where and usually the writer get paid zip for non-member views. We don’t need to manufacture outrage at non-issues.

Let’s talk some hard numbers

The program only rolled out to all members yesterday and I’ve already received email from a disgruntled writer saying it’s stupid and greedy. Doing the homework goes a long way towards keeping feet out of mouths. So let’s talk hard numbers.

The official post about the Friends of Medium tier said Medium has grown to almost one million members. Some people do the quick math and think holy crap, they’re making almost 5 million a month already at $5 per member.

From there, they jump right to corporate greed and assume the worst.

And I get it. Corporate greed is a problem.

I wrote a story once about a man who earns $15K per hour wailing on the news that he can’t “afford” to pay workers $15/hour because his poor business will go belly up. It’s too much, he whined. Corporate greed is a problem. I get that.

But we need to be careful how wide a brush we paint with.

Medium makes a crap ton of money. Reportedly, their annual revenue is $48 million. That’s because not everyone pays $5/month. Some pay annually. But still, that’s about 4 million per month. Can you even imagine?

But wait. Not done. Medium has about 127,050 active writers.

Of those, 70% earn “some” money.

30% of writers don’t earn anything. Either they choose not to paywall their writing or they are located in a country that doesn’t allow them to get paid.

Of the 127,050 active writers, 47,950 earn over $100. (That’s 6.2%.)

The remaining 116,200 writers make between $0.01 and $99 per month.

It’s doesn’t take more than basic math to realize that 47K people earning $100 exceeds membership fees paid. And that’s before they pay staff and the CEO.

That also doesn’t account for the people earning over $1000/month. It’s like running the faucet with the drain open. Money in, money out.

Also worth mentioning they have over 20 investors putting money into the coffers. Why? I don’t know. In hopes of long term gain, maybe. Or maybe it’s a tax write off, I don’t know their motivations. I’m not an investor so I can’t answer that.

It does make me wonder if the investors are the board of directors. I don’t know that, because I haven’t looked. It’s a side wonder, not the point.

Here’s another interesting tidbit. 60% of Medium users are middle-aged professionals, and approximately 53% earn more than $100,000 annually.

When you put those together, it makes sense. The number one reason people sign up is to support writers. And half of them earn over $100K annually. That’s what the “friends of Medium” tier is about. You want to support writers? Here you go.

Base rate x4. It’s not about what we “get.” It’s not a get-more tier. It’s about giving. Paying more to writers because you can, and you want to.

No, I don’t think “everyone” should upgrade.

Not everyone can afford $15/month and that’s fine. That’s why they didn’t just jack the prices like every grocery store in Canada. lol. This is not the mysterious case of the $40 chicken breasts like you might see in a grocery store where I live.

The $5 tier didn’t go away. Readers can still read as much as they want for $5 if that’s what they can afford. Plus, if you don’t read that much on Medium, it also doesn’t make sense. But if you’re able to pay more, now you can. And what you “get” is to support writers a little more. Base rate x4.

The pay jump might be less over time, here’s why...

One crusty commenter said oh sure, it’s nice for now. But how long before Medium cuts our pay again. I can answer that. When they open up to more countries.

Because right now, 30% of active writers are not getting paid. Some choose not to put their content behind the paywall. But many writers are in countries where they cannot get paid yet because of snafus between Medium and Stripe.

Once some of those countries open up, it might affect our pay. It depends whether the number of people paying $15/month keeps pace with the number of writers able to earn who are located in countries that are not currently able to.

If that happens, Medium will have to come up with another solution because writers will be screaming again. That’s how it’s been for years. They didn’t always have 127K writers, either. The growth in the writer pool affected the pay, too.

I’ve been there since day one of the partner program. I’ve seen it over and over.
Writers scream. Medium changes something. Writers scream. Rinse, repeat.

Brace yourself, there will be meta posts…

I’m already seeing them. Maybe you are, too. I’m not clicking any of them. Not even out of curiosity. For me, shit just got real. I love knowing that every writer I read will get paid base rate x4. I’m not wasting that on people who post garbage.

Someone complained that it’s going to create an uneven playing field. Yup, it might. I don’t know any part of life that’s an even playing field. That’s one of my biggest griefs. If life was an even playing field, we would not have homeless people sleeping in the snow or cops arresting people because they’re black or little girls getting married off at age thirteen in America or women getting raped every 2 minutes.

No, it’s not a level playing field. Nothing is.

In this case, maybe it will actually be an unexpected benefit of the “friend” tier. It might make “friends of medium” more selective in what they read and the people churning out crap might struggle a little more. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But that’s the optimist in me and I do actually see my own rose colored glasses. It’s also possible the meta posters and make money crowd might just find Medium a very lucrative place to be again. That would suck and I hope it doesn’t go that way.

How it actually plays out, only time will tell. But for now, I’m happy to know that when I read stories, the writer gets base rate x4. For now, I’m good with that.

I’d love to know what you think.

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xo,
Linda