MEDIUM | MY OPINION | A RANT
Dear Medium Members Who Read Writers’ Stories Via Twitter
Please stop allowing Medium to steal our Medium Partner Program earnings
Writers that belong to the Medium Partner Program get paid for minutes read by readers who pay their $5 a month to read an unlimited amount of our work into which many of us pour our blood, sweat, and tears. We get paid absolutely nothing for external reads. I am ok with that. I am not ok with the fact that I discovered last night that every read on Twitter is an external read even if the reader is a paying member of Medium.
Medium encourages us to share our stories on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I did not realize until last night that this only benefits the brand recognition of Medium. Writers are encouraged to build that brand recognition and for our efforts, Medium screws us.
I’m pissed!!
We all know the distribution algorithm is not designed to have our stories read and our work properly compensated. I accept that. I always share my stories on Twitter knowing that most Twitter members are not Medium subscribers and I do not care that for them our stories are not behind the paywall and I’m happy to share my messages with the world.
The curation algorithm, now known as the chosen-for-further-distribution-algorithm, penalizes writers who group tag fellow writers at the end of our stories. I am in “curation jail” for that practice, despite that I only do it in my poems and poets appreciate the tags because we are a community of writers who appreciate the chance to read and engage with each other's work.
I have been told that the algorithm does this because readers find group tagging offensive. I now realize that is bull shit.
It’s just another method by which Medium seeks to restrict the distribution of our content and thus not pay us.
As I have found that many writers have their tagging notifications turned off, sometimes I Twitter DM my stories to Medium friends and they are always happy for the opportunity to engage with my work. Last night a friend read three of my stories that I had direct messaged her over the past week. This happened just after the time that the stats move to the next day. I happened to look at my stats just then and clearly saw that each of her reads was deemed external and thus I would not be paid.
Do I care that I will not get $0.33 cents for her read and engagement with my eleven-minute essay? No. Her comments in my stories are priceless to me.
I do care that Medium is keeping this money that I earned.
Earlier this year I wrote an article questioning whether Medium, in other words, Ev Williams, is a malignant narcissist,
writing in part:
Here are some common traits of someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
In other words a narcissist succeeds by taking advantage of the talents of others to achieve their goals without giving credit where credit is due.
…
A few of us have had the intellect and intuition to know that Medium did not create the algorithm and paywall changes for any reason besides greed [box linking these following stories by other brave writers]:
A Reply to a Thorny Essay, by Pseudo-Ev Williams, I promise, one day I’ll get my act together
and quoted my own short form:
Our rigged system of capitalism is actually pathologically narcissistic as one succeeds not based upon their intelligence but upon their capacity to manipulate and take advantage of other people.
I am tempted to retitle that very popular article of mine to “Medium Is a Malignant Narcissist.”
I hope instead that we start to get paid for the reads I have described herein.
In the meantime, I implore paying Medium readers not to read our stories via Twitter. If you see a story on Twitter that you want to read, go into your Medium app or log into Medium from your browser, find the story, and read it there.
Thank you for reading and considering my request.
In Rama I create, with soul-energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
Marcus (Gregory Maidman)