Medium’s Compensation Tweak Hurts Writers

Including this young Nigerian poet

One happy thing that happened after I started the publication Fourth Wave was that a young man from Nigeria started sending in poems. We developed a nice friendship via email as I published them and we discussed them. Stephen Emmanuel Ogboh submitted the first poem from his own account, which didn’t allow for compensation. After talking it over, we posted the rest from my paid Fourth Wave Editors account and put his author attribution in the subtitle so he would have the opportunity to make money. He didn’t want to invest in a paid membership. He also wasn’t able to format the poetry well on his phone — the technology he had access to. I told him I’d gladly send him any money that his poems earned.

Today I logged into that account to check his lifetime earnings. The first poem we put behind the paywall, back when claps were a main component of the compensation equation, was this one based on the experiences of his mum, which includes a beautiful picture of her that he took himself:

You get a feel for the sincerity of the author in the note about him at the end:

Emmanuel Stephen Ogboh is a young Nigerian poet who loves to write about his observations and experiences. Inspired by Lisa Smallwood, an American poet and Chidinma Abiakalam, a Nigerian counselor he’s written works published or forthcoming on Tuck, Matador Review, Down in the Dirt, Chelsea Review, and elsewhere. Follow him here: https://medium.com/@Stephenecdotes.

Since being published on June 7 of 2019, that poem has earned $6.28 on 170 views, 104 reads, and 23 fans, with an average read time of 33 seconds.

The latest poem he submitted, after claps were devalued in the compensation equation and replaced by “read time” as the principal component, was this one about the troubles women face in Nigeria and elsewhere:

Since being published on Oct. 13 of 2020, that poem has earned 5 cents (!!!) on 123 views, 111 reads and 4 fans, with an average read time of 42 seconds.

So that’s the whole problem right there.

The “new” compensation equation discourages diverse voices

Medium’s new compensation equation rewards celebrities and cuts little guys out. People like Ev Williams and others make statements like “anyone can make it here,” and I believe that’s the honest intent, but what’s operating now is a star system, not one that nurtures eclectic and diverse voices that — when you can find them — make the platform rich in substance and expanse.

Income has dropped for most writers

It isn’t only through goodheartedness that I mention Stephen’s experience. My own income has dropped significantly (about 80 percent) since the compensation mechanism changed, and I’ve read many stories that say the same, most recently this one from writer and poet Anna Breslin: Medium, a Story of Frustration.

It’s not that my income was huge to begin with — I was making about $50 a month under the old system. But that felt acceptable. It felt like something I could build on. Today, it’s closer to $10, when I’m “lucky.” Going back to Stephen’s experience, no poet is going to feel great about earning $6 for a poem. But to earn just five cents is downright insulting.

As friend and philosopher Alan Tabor points out, to hear that one writer made $50,000 last month and one story made $10,000 while 94 percent of the people on the platform are making less than $100 a month makes the whole operation sound like some kind of lottery system or Ponzi scheme.

The creative Medium ecosystem would be much better served if the money were more widely distributed to a bigger percentage of contributors.

The compensation equation is inexplicable

When I first started Fourth Wave, I asked several writers I knew to sign up for Medium so they could contribute stories to my publication. At that time, I described the compensation mechanism like this: You pay $5 a month for a membership. If you clap for one story that month, that author gets $5. If you clap for 500, each author gets one cent. It doesn’t work exactly like that, since Medium takes a cut to run things, but that’s the basic idea.

That’s more or less how the Help menu described it, too. And it made sense to everyone. But now I have no idea how to explain it, because it’s inexplicable.

We’ve been told that “read time” is the most important component of multiple, non-specific components, but does that mean that poems get less, just by the nature of their genre? If I’m trying to earn a dollar, should I pad out my stories with a lot of meandering hoohah just to increase the length?

Claps used to help editors reward contributors

One reason poet and playwright Evelyn Jean Pine liked it better when claps figured into compensation was that it gave her some control over how her membership money was spent. And that’s why I liked it, too. As the editor of a small (but heartfelt!) feminist publication, it gave me a way to compensate Stephen and other contributors with my claps.

Here’s hoping the next evolution delivers

Medium is an evolving experiment. Once or twice a year, we hear that big things are changing here. So I’m hoping the powers that be are working as we speak on tweaking the compensation equation to spread the riches out.

In talking this over with my daughter, she wondered why I even cared, because posting on Medium is mostly about finding new readers, right? And yes. Yes, it is. So of course I should say that I still love the opportunity Medium provides to put my work in front of new readers on such a classy looking platform. And I love finding and supporting new writers, too.

But the money matters. Earning reasonable compensation legitimizes the work, validates the artist, and encourages writers to keep doing what they do.

So that’s my two cents, which is about what I expect to earn on this story. :p

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