Are the Medium Days of Monetizing Smut Coming to an End?

Summary

Two Medium writers lost their Stripe accounts for monetizing adult content, prompting concerns and discussions about alternative platforms and payment processors for smut writers.

Abstract

The article discusses the recent termination of Stripe accounts for Medium writers who were monetizing their adult content, with one writer's account reinstated and another's appeal denied. The incident raises questions about the future of monetizing explicit content on Medium and similar platforms. The author suggests potential alternatives for writers of adult content, such as selling longer works on Amazon or other book retailers, joining sites like Vocal that allow smut, or creating an independent website with adult content-friendly payment processors like Payment Cloud or Durango. The author also mentions the possibility of monetizing through ads from affiliate programs or using services like Juicy Ads. The article concludes with the author pondering the future of adult content on Medium and invites readers to consider their options if the platform becomes less hospitable to such content.

Opinions

The author believes that Stripe's actions may or may not lead to broader scrutiny of accounts by the company.
It is implied that Medium is unlikely to prioritize the needs of adult content creators by integrating a payment processor that is more lenient towards smut.
The author expresses a preference for the flexibility Medium offered in terms of writing across various niches within adult content.
The author is uncertain about the ease of working with alternative payment processors that accept adult content.
There is a recognition that running an independent website involves significant effort but may be a necessary step for writers of adult content.
The author is in the process of considering the best course of action in light of these developments.
The author questions how smut readers will adapt if adult content becomes scarce on Medium, suggesting that readers might follow writers to new platforms or networks of sites.
The author poses questions about reader preferences for ad-supported content versus paid or membership-based access to adult content.

It’s too soon to tell but it’s not too soon to start thinking about an alternative

Yesterday two Medium writers lost their Stripe accounts for daring to monetize their smut. If you want to know more you can read about it on Twitter here and here (and the follow up to an appeal here).

TLDR — one writer had her account reinstated. The other had his appeal denied.

Stripe might decide to start looking at more accounts or this could be the end of it. It’s hard to tell with massive companies like this. I’ve heard of PayPal shutting down accounts for similar reasons, yet online sex workers still use it and smut writers often do, too (including me) to take commissions or donations.

This will likely blow over for everyone else. But you need to know that if you write explicit sexual stories, you could be. next.

I’m not going to go into they why they do this and if there’s any way around it. They are allowed to do this. It’s their payment processor. And Medium likely won’t bother adding in a more adult friend payment processor because let’s face it — smut writers will never be that important to them.

Knowing that your income from Medium could come to an end, what are you going to do? What are your options?

Amazon and other book retailers: Put your books in a collection or make them longer and sell them on Amazon. You can use other book retailers, too, but it depends on your flavor of smut. Will this work? Maybe. Maybe not. Amazon works better when you publish longer works and write in a niche. (One of the things I liked about Medium was that I could be all over the place with my niches and still do petty well)

Find another site. Vocal allows for smut, too. But you’re still going to come up upon the payment issue at some point because they also pay with Stripe.

Build your own website. If you’re going to sell memberships, you’re still going to have to find a payment processor. That’s not impossible because there are payment processors that accept adult content but you’ll have to find the right one for you. Payment Cloud and Durango both allow for adult content. I have no idea how easy they are to work with. You could decide to monetize your smut stories with ads. Porn sites, dating sites, cam sites, tube sites — all of these have affiliate programs that you can use to make money from your smut writing site. Juicy Ads provides Adsense-like advertising for adult sites. They pay per click and you can sell ads on your site. Running your own site is a crap load of work though.

I’m still thinking about what to do. But it’s very obvious to me that the days of smut are on Medium are coming to an end.

As a smut reader — what will you do if the amount of smut starts to disappear on Medium? Will you follow individual writers? What if writers worked together? Would you follow them all to a network of sites? Would you read the smut with the ads or do you prefer to read with ads?

It’s a lot to think about isn’t it?