Are Ads Coming to Medium?

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ealistically it’s poorly geared towards writers AND readers. For example, I make a few hundred a month writing for Medium, but if I had the same stats on YouTube, that I have on Medium, I would likely be bringing in thousands of dollars.</p><p id="ec1e">So, what's the solution? Medium has already experimented with various monetization factors like giving pieces of each member to those writers that get them to join… but that's also pretty unsustainable. Recruiting people as a means of growth only goes so far. Imagine trying to recruit people that haven’t joined Facebook yet… and getting them to pay to join. Sure, some might but it’s just not that enticing, I’d rather just write.</p><p id="366d">A few other options could be:</p><ul><li>Donation buttons</li><li>Tiered subscriptions ( $5,$ 10, $25, etc)</li><li>Expanding content</li></ul><p id="db2d">and these might be short-term solutions, but realistically it’s not quite as sustainable or profitable as just allowing ads. Ads can pay up to several DOLLARS per click, and several cents per view. So, if you’re like me and getting as much as 40,000 views a month, that would be several thousands of dollars instead of a few hundred. As well, that would allow Medium plenty of money to split the earnings from ads with writers, and writers would make way more than they do now. Not to mention, where I am at, I am in the top 6% of all Medium writers. Generally, only the top 6% of Medium writers make more than 100$ , and last month I cleared a little over $500 with about 35,000 views. Comparatively, the top 1% of Medium writers can make ALOT but it’s almost nothing when compared to YouTube. Mr. Beast and PewDiePie are both making MILLIONS a month, but the top Medium writers make thousands, or tens of thousands. Sure, paying 3 or 4 people a few grand, or even tens of thousands will keep them around, but the balance is a bit hard. For example, if the top write

Options

rs instead used their following to just get big on YT and then basically gave up on Medium, what then? If people simply make their way to the top of Medium just to get big on other platforms, Medium will basically be cycling through their creators constantly, but also stuck paying them large sums just to stick around so they don’t completely leave.</p><p id="2588">The best part of allowing ads is the fact that it could become more profitable to write on Medium than would be to make videos on YouTube because they could still just keep the current freemium model and pay users based on internal views. The $5 could be the ad-free version or something as well.</p><p id="e10b">What do you think? Would you be open to ads on Medium? A$ 5 ad-free version + needed to be paid while writing, etc? What are your thoughts on this?</p><h1 id="772a">New To Medium?</h1><p id="434b">If you like this article and want to read more from me and authors like me, without any restrictions, consider becoming a Medium member using the link below!</p><div id="d758" class="link-block"> <a href="https://ccnaysmith.medium.com/membership"> <div> <div> <h2>Join Medium with my referral link - Caleb Naysmith</h2> <div><h3>As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…</h3></div> <div><p>ccnaysmith.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*oCJECApiZwzsiuMQ)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="a736">You get unlimited access to tons of great work, and it helps me by getting a small portion of the membership at no extra cost to you!</p><p id="654d">Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/calebnaysmith</p></article></body>

It’s on everyone’s mind, but will this ever happen?

Medium isn’t like most other large social media companies. It wasn’t started during the dot-com boom and is now some highly profitable, multi-trillion-dollar social media company. It was launched in 2012 and really didn’t see much success until several years later. Now, it’s one of the largest sites in the world by web traffic, but despite the entire point is to drive web traffic through articles, it’s still kind of small compared to most. Most of the traffic is external, but they don’t run ads so it’s all about Medium memberships.

Medium almost certainly isn’t profitable, and it’s unclear how bad the problem is because they don’t disclose any of this. However, they have raised over $163 million, most of which has either been burned through or went to acquisitions. While it doesn’t mean Medium is dying, if the money spicket decides to turn off, they can’t just stop paying their writers because then the platform just dies. This creates a pretty interesting issue:

Writers need to be paid, but they can’t drastically cut their pay without killing the platform. However, the current model likely needs way more scale to be profitable and seems like the ceiling isn’t very high. Facebook and other social media companies have been struggling with user retention recently, and those are companies where using the platform is COMPLETELY FREE. Here, not only do you have to pay to really enjoy it, but realistically it’s poorly geared towards writers AND readers. For example, I make a few hundred a month writing for Medium, but if I had the same stats on YouTube, that I have on Medium, I would likely be bringing in thousands of dollars.

So, what's the solution? Medium has already experimented with various monetization factors like giving pieces of each member to those writers that get them to join… but that's also pretty unsustainable. Recruiting people as a means of growth only goes so far. Imagine trying to recruit people that haven’t joined Facebook yet… and getting them to pay to join. Sure, some might but it’s just not that enticing, I’d rather just write.

A few other options could be:

Donation buttons

Tiered subscriptions ($5, $10, $25, etc)

Expanding content

and these might be short-term solutions, but realistically it’s not quite as sustainable or profitable as just allowing ads. Ads can pay up to several DOLLARS per click, and several cents per view. So, if you’re like me and getting as much as 40,000 views a month, that would be several thousands of dollars instead of a few hundred. As well, that would allow Medium plenty of money to split the earnings from ads with writers, and writers would make way more than they do now. Not to mention, where I am at, I am in the top 6% of all Medium writers. Generally, only the top 6% of Medium writers make more than 100$, and last month I cleared a little over $500 with about 35,000 views. Comparatively, the top 1% of Medium writers can make ALOT but it’s almost nothing when compared to YouTube. Mr. Beast and PewDiePie are both making MILLIONS a month, but the top Medium writers make thousands, or tens of thousands. Sure, paying 3 or 4 people a few grand, or even tens of thousands will keep them around, but the balance is a bit hard. For example, if the top writers instead used their following to just get big on YT and then basically gave up on Medium, what then? If people simply make their way to the top of Medium just to get big on other platforms, Medium will basically be cycling through their creators constantly, but also stuck paying them large sums just to stick around so they don’t completely leave.

The best part of allowing ads is the fact that it could become more profitable to write on Medium than would be to make videos on YouTube because they could still just keep the current freemium model and pay users based on internal views. The $5 could be the ad-free version or something as well.

What do you think? Would you be open to ads on Medium? A $5 ad-free version + needed to be paid while writing, etc? What are your thoughts on this?