What I Can’t Stand About Medium
Don’t get me wrong — I think that Medium is a great platform; it’s easy to use, there are a ton of writers inspired to create, and the potential to earn money is intriguing, but I do have a few gripes about it. First of all, Medium is not a get rich quick platform, don’t try to make it one.
Everyone on here is a writer that want’s to make some money by posting articles and attracting followers. You posting an article saying “Follow for follow — lets all get to 100 followers!” will not get you the followers you want. It will get you followers that only want you to make them money as well. I wouldn’t call these people genuine fans.
The readers you want in your following are the ones that are genuinely interested in the topic or topics that you specialize in. The thing is, the only followers that make us money on Medium are Medium Members, aka, other writers. The audience on Medium is first and foremost other people trying to make money on the platform.
So how do we make Medium a viable platform for us all to create as we please, make money, and attract a following?
Right now, it seems like the number one topic on Medium is “How to get followers” or “Get to 100 followers with this trick?”. Does this not seem like a cheap hack to anyone else?
A writer on here put it well by saying they wished they had never done the follow for follow scheme. Now he has a bunch of followers that aren’t interested in his work and his stats are dropping inorganically. Another writer made the front page by expressing his anger, “I’ve written 400 articles in 6 months and I’m only making 100 dollars a month! what gives??”
Are you kidding me? Writing is hard and gaining followers in harder. Especially on Medium. If you want to make money faster, I might suggest starting your own site and advertising that. You can at least run ads, sell merch, and brand yourself more strategically.
In my eyes, Medium is not a place where I will make a ton of money. It is a side project where I blog about traveling and writing, and could be a small supplemental income to whatever else I am doing.
It is an enclosed economy of writers and, in order to make money on here, you have to appeal to writers. Real writers; not people thinking they’ll make an easy buck by word vomiting online once a day.
My suggestion to you is this: write really good work about something you’re passionate about, and the followers you want will come. I know thats cliche and I don’t even have the followers to back it up yet, but this is something that is troubling to me about some Medium members — they don’t understand their audience yet. Our audience on Medium is other writers.
I would love to see a Medium that isn’t diluted with “GeT a 100 fOllOwerS QuIcK” stories. Write actual content and market yourself on social media. You’ll get followers naturally and you won’t dilute the quality of writing on here.
What are your thoughts on Medium? Which topics do you see most written about? Where do you see Medium going in the future?
To read to my day-job blog, visit ElCooperativo.org, a research and opinion site dedicated to political economics and cooperative information.