Better read than dead

Do Read Ratios Matter?

Or are we all just numbers anyway?

Content warning: If you dislike stories about, with, or by statistics, this is not the story for you. But in the interests of serious scientific research — and my read ratio — it is now too late for you to stop reading. Sorry. On a brighter note, there is a reward for you at the bottom of this story.

Not enough people read.

Not just on Medium, but in life. In Australia, a study in 2021 found that 75% of people had read at least one book in the past year. That sounds pretty good, right? Except of those readers, only 28% read at least one book a month.

Who knows what qualifies as a book either. I reckon 38% counted the hymn book at Auntie Bertha’s funeral. Another 18% probably counted the time they were waiting to pick up their car from the mechanics and found an old Playboy stashed in the dunny. Talk about an oil change.

It helped that 89% of the pages were stuck together. Ol’ Bertha sure had a sexy song collection, and her selfies were something else.

Decease my beating heart.

Now that I've got my statistical acumen and pro-reading background out of the way, we can get stuck into the juicy meta steaks I know you’ve been salivating over.

What’s the deal with read ratios?

Could someone please tell me whether they matter or not? I used to read one Medium writer who was obsessed with them. If I read a piece and it didn’t count as a ‘read,’ they would let me know directly. They even recommended I use the listen function as that seemed to guarantee a read counting properly.

That seemed like a lot of effort to go to just to affect a useless statistic. But obviously some people don't feel it’s useless. Does having a lower read ratio reduce how much the algo boosts your story?

I ask this because recently a few of my stories have had really low read ratios. This may have been due to the terrible content and lack of statistical acumen, or perhaps people had to leave halfway through my story for a funeral.

Anyways, one of those stories bombed, and the other two did pretty well. What’s up with that?

Again, it is possible the 22nd of March was a big day for funerals — my deepest condolences — but it still seems a bit rando to me.

Other possible reasons my read ratio is low

Most of my pieces have more fans than reads. This could be due to the bot clappers, but I have wondered if I put too much blurby stuff at the bottom. You know the spiel:

Please sign up to my emails, my newsletter, and my OnlyIfYouWereTheLastHumanOnEarthFans site. AND IF YOU DARE SIGN UP TO MEDIUM WITHOUT USING MY REFERRAL LINK I WILL PERSONALLY STEAL YOUR INTERNET CABLE AND USE IT FOR FLY FISHING.

Or are my pictures too weird? (No way it’s the words, right?)

If any of you more experienced Medium writers know the answers to these questions, please let me know. Brutal honesty is welcome, despite it not always being the best policy.

About that reward…