Enjoy the Bonuses While They Last

This is the Medium ‘circle of life’

The only constant of writing here is that nothing is.

I first noticed something had changed early in April. My stats were up across the board. Not just views and reads — each read was worth substantially more. I’ve been on the platform since 2019 and am used to seeing pieces languish in the sub $5 territory before dying ignominiously. But suddenly my writing was making decent money. Was this a return to the halcyon days of yore?

And then Medium threw a bonus at me.

May was more of the same. I bought a MacBook with my windfall. At this rate I’ll be keeping up with the Kardashians in no time.

June is already on track to be my best month ever.

WTF.

Everywhere you look, people are celebrating their sudden good fortune writing on Medium. And for good reason. Happy Days are here again. Right?

Right???

After bonus payouts two months in a row, it’s natural to wonder if this is the new norm. Medium even sent out a sorta official email the second time with some additional parameters, but in true Medium style, no real clarity on how the bonus is allocated.

People are speculating that this is a knee-jerk reaction to the money News Break was throwing at writers, a way to stop some mass exodus that I don’t think ever happened. Or that it is the natural side-effect of Medium’s decision to move away from pursuing big name writers for their in-house pubs. And while there may be some truth to that, I think it’s all a bit overblown.

Medium is doing what Medium has always done: experiment. Tweak. Change the rules. There’s a reason Ev hasn’t said anything about the payouts — there’s nothing to say. This isn’t official. It’s a beta test.

Medium changes stuff all the time. If this seems new and unprecedented, you haven’t been here very long.

They have continuously modified the all-mighty algorithm since the introduction of the payout program — and probably before that, but nobody much cared until money was involved. They’ll make a change and then sit back for a few months to measure how it performs and then change it again.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

So it is with software, too. You could argue that Medium itself is just an open beta. Nothing that happens on this platform is guaranteed to continue. Nothing. Not even our beloved partner program.

That isn’t to say these recent changes aren’t warranted. It feels like a much-needed course correction, but I wonder if it has swung too far in the opposite direction. Is this really sustainable?

Only Medium can answer that question, but I suspect the answer is no.

This all reminds me of the scene in Mad Max: Fury Road where Immortan Joe opens the enormous spigot and dumps water on the poor plebs below. It was an awesome display of his power and also completely wasteful. There are surely better ways to distribute water. But Joe’s purpose wasn’t really to hydrate those people.

I’m certainly not suggesting the bonuses were wasted on us, only that the downpour of dollars is an end unto itself. And also to remind you that Medium controls the spigot and can shut it off at any time. And almost surely will.

Medium made it rain. People are still joyously splashing in the puddles and looking at the sky, hoping for more. Or worse, planning as though this is a sure thing going forward. But there is only one logical reaction to something like this. Only one thing you can actually control. One thing you should be doing anyway, whether good times or bad.

Write your damn face off.

Eric writes about pop culture here at Medium. If you’d like to see what else he’s working on, check out his newsletter.