An Open Letter to the Medium Partner Program Team

We have just consumed the first two months of the New Monetization Rules and the Engagement Bug remains.

Update note:

“The Medium team sent an email on October 11 explaining that they have checked the situation of the fault exposed in that letter, and found that there was some fraudulent movement on the part of some authors, and they are already suspended and the problem has been solved, at the end of October, all the authors like me who were harmed by the fraud, will be rewarded with a recalculation of earnings. After reading the letter, you can read the updated article on the problem here. “

Letter Content Before Medium Update.

Dear directors and managers of the Medium monetization area, as an active user it is necessary for me to report the failures that are happening on the platform on a given day. I would like to start by sincerely apologizing if I have been too deep and used some exaggeration in this letter. Medium released the new partner program rules on August 1st and on October 1st these rules completed two months, and what has been noticed in these two months is that the monetization that is being considered (calculated), is only based on the reading/listening time and the distribution, only the time that members exceed after the first 30 seconds of reading is being considered and when a story is distributed by the curator, the claps, highlights, comments and followers are not being considered.

What is the Partner Program?

The Partner Program is how writers can earn money for the stories they publish on Medium based on the involvement and activity of Medium members. So far, so good.

What do The New Rules Say?

The new rules say that earnings would be based on more meaningful metrics, but it seems that there is some bug that is making the metrics less meaningful, where some details are being left out and this needs the attention of the monetization team because it is killing the creators’ stories because the reading time and listening time of the members in the calculation of earnings are being considered normally, there is nothing to complain about regarding these metrics. Now the inclusion of engagement such as claps, highlights, replies, and follows, not even the first clap/feature/reply/follow is being counted, as the rules state. The rules go on to say that subsequent engagements by the same person will not increase earnings, because Medium aims to get closer to identifying the quality of the story, looking beyond its ability to attract attention. Starting a discussion or inspiring highlights, that’s happening, but even that isn’t working.

As far as anyone knows, receiving applause for an article is a sign that it has resonated with the reader more deeply, so I think the partner program team needs to review this situation, I’m convinced it’s a bug going on because it’s not happening with 100% of the writers, a good part of all the monetization details are being considered normally without any problems with calculations or consideration of earnings.

How Are Earnings Calculated in The New Rules?

Earnings calculations are based on members’ reading and listening time, as well as signs of member engagement, which include claps, highlights, replies, and new followers. Reads and read rates are defined as how many people (members) read your story for 30 seconds or more, divided by the total number of views. But even though the calculations are not made directly based on word or time count, there is a noticeable irregularity when compared to all the factors involved in earnings calculations. In other words, a story may meet all the eligibility and quality criteria, but there is still a noticeably huge difference in whether it performs the same or less well than other creators.

Please check this situation.