Deal of No Deal?

Friend of Medium

Why I Am A Hard No

In the past few weeks, many of the online platforms to which I subscribe have made seasonal gift offers, including Medium. Here, I have the chance to buy a one-year gift subscription for a friend, which is affordable; like many others, I recently received my invitation to become a “Friend of Medium”…for a significantly increased fee.

I have decided against accepting that invitation and want to share my reasons.

Many writers have voiced deep dissatisfaction with the recent revenue stream changes; most have seen a drop, some a considerable drop, in what they make for their writing efforts. Many have voiced a desire to go elsewhere in search of an adequate reward for their writing, and some have questioned whether Medium, as a corporation, is having financial difficulties and wonder if the corporate executives are trying to wring as much out of our ‘normal’ subscription to appease stockholders.

Others, less inclined to see the nice part of things, have even asked if the recent unclear change in writer revenue isn’t just a money grab by Medium executives to enhance their bottom line at the end of the year either to increase executive bonuses or to attract investors.

I do not believe the latter, and so far, I have no opinion on the former, mostly because it does not matter to me. I am happy to pay them the US$5.00 for my monthly membership in the Medium Partner Program.

That said, like others, I recently received my ‘invitation’ to become a “Friend of Medium” … and pay US$15.00 per month, a 300 percent increase from my current monthly rate. For that large increase, I would ‘share’ some of my monthly fee with other writers, but without being told how large that share would be.

That concerns me.

At a time when writer revenue is dropping without a clear explanation why, asking me to spend more for the privilege and joy without giving me a clear explanation of how that increase would be shared is inexplicable.

Some of the other “benefits” are:

• On the friend tier, your readers will pay out 4X to the writers you read. [Since I do not know how much is currently being paid out like this, I do not know what four times that is.]
• You get a badge on your profile saying you’re a “Friend of Medium”. [We humans do love trinkets, do we not?]
• You can share Friend Links for any paywalled story — even stories that aren’t written by you. [I have not yet shared any stories, so I am not sure this is worth what it will cost.]
• When people view your friend link, you will be compensated for that external read. [Again, I am not sure of the value of this.]

There is a lot of benefit without specificity, isn’t there? That is kind of like the current Boost program; it seems to be lacking in the details and can always benefit Medium, not the writer. As I wrote earlier, it would be so nice if they said, “Of your monthly fee, $7.00 goes to Medium for administrative costs, and $8.00 goes to a fund to be shared with writers. We are developing specific policy guidance on that right now.”

Considering that I am not sure that Medium is not in a bit of financial warm water, or that their stockholders have put pressure on the executives for a greater return on investment, or that they just want higher pay, asking me for three times my monthly fee without including an explanation like, “…of which X% will be added to a pot for distribution directly to writers, using procedures to be developed and publicised…” is unacceptable.

Failing to give some specificity to a significant increase in my membership fee is reason enough for me to say “No, thank you“ to this invitation. Even though I wish them success in this endeavor, I am not confident it is not designed to help their corporate bottom line at the writers’ expense.

Until I am assured that the writer’s revenue will improve significantly by trebling my membership fee, I will be a hard No. I doubt that will happen.