The Drama At Medium Made Me Think
Happy Friday,
Usually when there’s drama on Medium, I’m oblivious. And trust me, there’s always drama on Medium. There’s drama on every writing site that exists and ever existed. Because writers are people and people have emotions.
This time I wasn’t oblivious.
It started yesterday when Jessica Wildfire wrote a post saying “Okay Medium, I get it. I’m not good enough.” Apparently her views are tanking, too. She was pondering whether to throw in the towel or not. Stay or go.
My first thought was Christ — if someone with 118K followers isn’t getting enough views to generate an income that sustains her, what hope is there for anyone?
It’s not even about whether anyone “likes” her writing. It’s that 118K people do.
You know? I mean seriously — that’s 100K more followers than I have. lol. If she can’t make it fly, why am I even trying?
But that was just my knee jerk reaction. Then the comments started coming in.
Tony (the new CEO) actually responded. He said most of the conversation is private between him and Jessica, but he wanted to let everyone know there’s been no big changes in the algorithm in 6 months, so Medium isn’t “messing with” anyone’s views. He said all they did was change the way the feed works so that if readers click the “show less like this” button, they won’t see the writer’s stories.
He said any changes we’re seeing isn’t because of Medium, it’s because of our readers.
Which is interesting, because Medium recently announced that they changed how distribution works and while there still “is” distribution, it will be more selective and writers won’t be notified if their stories are distributed anymore.
So much for “no changes in the last six months” I guess?
But here’s what made me stop and think.
First, a lot of people left comments saying they’ve been spending less time at Medium. The drop in pay and views affected the amount of time they spend there. Right there is indication of why views might be down. Disgruntled writers reading less.
Plus, several people left comments saying “don’t leave” and telling Jessica she’s the “only” reason they pay for a Medium membership, to read her writing.
I couldn’t help but wonder why they aren’t just subscribing on Substack instead of Medium? Then their whole $5 would go to Jessica directly. I mean — if what they say is true and they only subscribe at Medium to read “her” work, then why not just click over and pay her directly by subscribing at Substack, instead?
Probably because when they joined Medium, she didn’t have a Substack yet? I don’t know, but it’s a fair guess.
We humans aren’t terribly fond of change. Once we start doing a thing, it’s easier to keep doing it than to think about whether there’s a smarter or better way. You know? Plus, a different way means starting over again and that kind of sucks.
The conclusion I took from the whole mess isn’t about Medium. It’s not about whether Jessica or Tony are right or wrong.
It’s this… if a writer doesn’t have their own audience, they’re always at the mercy of someone else’s decisions.
That’s the real drawback to sites like Medium. All my readers there aren’t my readers. They’re Medium’s readers. They’re the circus, I’m just one of the attractions. Same thing applies on every other site, whether it’s Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or anywhere else. If they make changes that affect us, we can’t do a thing about it.
The only way to prevent that from happening is to build our own audience. Easier said than done, but in the long run it’s the only way to build anything sustainable.
Thoughts?
More reading…
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xo,
Linda
I stopped following Jessica Wildfire on Medium when ALL of her posts were doom & gloom and were not contributing to my life or happiness. There was no learning about anything new, no perspective on how to handle things, no...hope, really.
Medium for me has become a time suck and a time waster. Even when I knocked myself out to post 3 times a week I BARELY made back my membership fee. This past month, I made .43 cents.
I should just cut the cord and pivot completely to Substack.
I completely agree with you, we need to find our own audience and stop relying on Medium's. Although I recognize the irony in having said that, I am trying to clone my writerly-self into fiction as well, so finding my audience to make connections with over epic fantasy has proven to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated.
You're absolutely right. I'm one of those who stayed on Medium for a very small number of writers, including you. Some of them have moved to Substack and/or Patreon, and I have followed. It's a tough slog to rebuild an audience, but it's the ultimate solution. One of the most valuable lessons I ever got from Seth Godin was the concept of finding the "minimum viable audience". As an author of a few apps for iPhone and iPad, I am not even a drop in the ocean of app makers, but I am one of few that make a small, but meaningful, amount of money from my small audience. I write for those looking for the new thing, and they tell the others. It takes a while, but it works.