If You’re Struggling On Medium Right Now, This Might Be Why
Lack of transparency doesn’t justify tin foil hat conspiracies. I hope Medium is listening. I hope they fix it.
When users of one platform take legitimate complaints to another platform, you know two things. One, there’s a problem. Two, it’s not being addressed in a way that alleviates the frustration.
I saw a YouTube video about Medium problems…
I am not naming the person who made the video because I don’t name people. That’s not how I roll, and if you name the person I’ll delete your comment, just so you know. This isn’t about “who” made a video, it’s about what’s happening on Medium, right here, right now.
First thing. The creator of the video is no slouch as far as Medium goes. It was made by a prolific and popular writer with over 20K readers. So, it’s not remotely like the new writers who go on FB to whine about “curation jail” on their third post that didn’t, incidentally, even meet content guidelines.
All the same issues discussed in the video are being discussed in FB groups and even right here on Medium.
First? Lack of transparency doesn’t justify tin foil hat conspiracies. Please stop…
As soon as something goes wrong, tin foil hat conspiracies show up. The worst part of tin foil hat conspiracies is that only the ones you don’t buy into sound crazy. If you buy into them, they sound totally plausible.
Even if they’re not.
There’s an entire field of psychology that studies why smart people believe stupid things. We won’t go into that here. But the theory applies. Hoo boy, some of the stuff I’ve heard.
Omg, Medium bought that other platform and they’re ignoring Medium and it’s going to die, omg, Medium is dying…
Medium is trying to get rid of writers so they’re reducing our traffic so they don’t have to tell us and we’ll just leave…
Medium is trying to get rid of all the publications except their own…
People? Stop.
Medium hasn’t been awesome about transparency, but they aren’t obligated to be. When there are big changes they tell us. Always have. So stop.
Conspiracy theories don’t help anything or anyone. There are some problems here, particularly right now. They’re trying something new and it’s not working great. That’s life. Some things work. Some things don’t.
We don’t need to dance down ridiculous roads when the truth is enough.
I hope Medium has their ear to the ground and is aware of the frustrations writers are feeling here. Honestly? I don’t care if they address the concerns. They would not be the first or the last company to struggle with what level of transparency will help versus harm. But I hope they’ll fix them.
Some of the legitimate issues discussed in the video are:
Traffic has dropped for most writers since November…
Last November Medium announced that they’re using a new “relational” model to better connect readers and writers. Since then, a lot of writers have seen their views take a nosedive.
There are exceptions. I was one of them, for a while. In December I had a piece go viral and hit 100K views. It was my best month, ever. January rode on that for a while. But outside of that crazy viral success? If I removed the views of that one piece that went a little wild, my views are down, too.
The creator of the video has seen a 50% reduction in views. That’s a significant drop.
We can say it’s “just one person” but it’s not. The comment section would make a lie of that. Most of the commenters are experiencing the same thing. Drastic drops in views, as much as 50%.
It’s not anything writers are doing “wrong”
New writers and writers that have always struggled tend to assume they’re doing something wrong. Seems to me that’s what creative people default to. When we’re struggling, we think it’s something “we” are doing.
What am I doing wrong is the theme song of the creative, it seems.
Here’s the ugly truth. When a prolific writer that used to get 80K views in a month is suddenly getting 40K views in a month and nothing the writer is doing has changed — it’s not the writer.
Some of the most popular writers are not posting anymore…
The video also pointed out that many of the top writers who were once prolific and frequent writers have not been writing on the platform. Just to name a few…
— Kris Gage (87K readers) hasn’t posted since 2020 — Ben Hardy (252K) hasn’t posted since fall, 2020 — Zat Rana (113K) also left Medium in 2020 — Brianna Wiest (80K) has not posted since Dec, 2020 — Jessica Valenti (51K) hasn’t posted since Feb 1, 2021
I haven’t tracked them all down to see what they’re doing now, but I do know at least two of those people are active on Substack.
When writers who had a giant following are leaving, something is wrong.
I don’t care if we understand the relational model. I just care if it works. Right now, it doesn’t.
One of the biggest laments in the video was that writers don’t understand the new relational model. Good! Kudos to Medium on at least that much. Gaming algorithms is one of my pet peeves on the internet and I hate seeing it here.
Google changes their algorithm 500+ times per year because of people who make a business out of gaming the algorithm to get crappy sites ranked. We don’t need people “gaming” the algorithm here.
Writers have, in the past, using the support line to harass mods about curation. They’ve posted duplicate content in multiple publications. Medium responds the only way they can. They change the system. They have to.
So I don’t care if we understand how the relational model works. For that matter, I’d rather we didn’t. You can’t game what you don’t understand.
But it needs to work. Right now, it doesn’t. And I’m not just talking about writers. Writers are the minority here. It doesn’t work for readers, either.
The homepage is hopelessly broken…
I have seen the same articles on the homepage for days, so when I saw that mentioned in the video, I nodded along. Yup, I’m seeing the same. Same dang stories every time I look. So are most of the people in the comments.
If you pay attention, you might notice that they don’t go away until you click them, which is how the 8 profile heads in the right corner work, too. At least on desktop. No idea how the phone app works because I don’t use Medium on my phone. Life is made of distractions and that one, I can do without.
Anyway, Medium randomly feeds you 8 people or publications based on what you follow or what they randomly think you should read based on an algorithm — and until you click them, they don’t change.
Now the homepage seems to work that way, too. It’s like when Mom used to say no dessert until you eat your vegetables, nevermind that if you’d liked those vegetables, you’d already have eaten them.
Here’s the issue. If I’m seeing the same articles day after day because I didn’t click them, guess what I’m not seeing? Your new post. Even if I follow you. And guess what you’re not seeing? My new posts. Even if you follow me.
That is not remotely relational, imho. Thousands of new pieces go up daily here. If the content changed every time I reloaded the page, the odds of finding something I actually want to read would go up.
Worthy of mention — writers are readers, too.
Also worthy of mention — writers are also readers. I know writers are the minority, here. Most of the “users” of this site read, but don’t write. But still, I would bet that writers here are likely among the most prolific readers.
Medium needs to ask if they want to focus on the readers who read a couple of stories a week, or the ones who read ten every day. Worth thinking about.
Clearing my reading history fixes nothing
Medium has been displaying a little grey bar that says if you can’t find something to read, clear your reading history. I got excited, thinking it might work. It didn’t. I deleted my entire reading history and nothing changed.
Then I unfollowed some of the publications I used to follow to see if that makes a difference. Nope. Same handful of articles I’ve been seeing for at least 5 days in a row. I guess they’re just not going to change until I click them?
This is not a good experience for writers or readers.
Notifications are perpetually broken
Here’s a horror story. I’d filled in the form to write for a new publication. It said they’d send me a notification and please make sure they’re turned on.
But when I tried to check notifications, they weren’t working. I could see the first few, but when I clicked “older notifications” nothing happened.
After a couple of days I was concerned about not seeing the notification I was waiting for, so I reached out to support. They replied to say yup, it’s a known bug and sent me a link to view notifications in a separate window.
In case you’re having the same problem, try his: — https://medium.com/me/activity
Which then brings UX into play. Would it be so hard to put a tiny link to that in the notification window? It’s a simple little UX fix that could go miles towards reducing frustration for users whose notifications aren’t working. Again.
Do other writing sites know…?
Nothing exists in a vacuum and I find myself wondering how wide the ripples of frustration have grown. How far the echo reverberates. Medium is probably among the best of sites for writers, but it’s not the only one.
News Break is seeing a surge in signups
Like many others, I applied to News Break. After the application process, they showed an apology message. It said something to the effect that they used to respond in around a week, but the number of applications is so high right now, it’s taking at least double that, or more.
Here’s the rub. To meet the payout threshold on News Break, your articles need to get a pre-determined number of views. Right now, that number is 500. If you’re not getting 500 views per article on Medium, what makes you think you’ll get that on News Break? You might. But you might not, too.
The thresholds over there are pretty prohibitive if you don’t have an audience. You need 500 followers and 500 views per article to get paid. But still, their signups are surging to an all time high. Frustration? Desperation?
I don’t know, but I see that as a reflection of the frustrations here, because many of the applications are coming from Medium writers.
Not to mention that one of the top writers has written a piece to tell writers they can make $1000 — $2000 per month over there.
A few people are doing well. If you can write clickbait that pushes buttons and not take the vitriol in comments personally, you might do well, too. But most people best grab some sugar, cause they’re about to swallow a bitter pill.
I’m not entirely sure running into those arms is a solution for most.
Vocal is reaching out to Medium writers
Imagine my surprise when Vocal reached out, inviting me to try out their program. I’ll write about that in a separate post, but suffice to say I have to wonder if they are aware of the frustrations here, too.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they’re just cherry picking people. I have no idea. Of all the writing sites, Vocal’s payouts are among the lowest. If you’re a paid member, you get $6 per thousand views. Less if you’re an unpaid member. I think it’s around half that, but I’m too lazy to go check.
People grumble that 9% of writers make over $100 on Medium, but if you want to make $100 on Vocal, you need to get 16,666 reads.
Are you getting that here? Because if you’re not, how do you expect to get them there? The real way to make money on Vocal is through bonuses and challenges, not just writing. Again — I’ll do a separate post on that.
The interesting point, though, is the increasing number of Medium writers I’m seeing on Vocal. Some of them go over there to write about Medium.
Aggregation sites are reaching out, too
Shortly after I set up a profile on Vocal, I got an email from an aggregation site. It said something like this… Hey, we rocked on Product Hunt and we notice you’re on more than one writing site.
We think you’d be interested in our platform so you can aggregate all your writing in one place. Can we schedule a call to discuss? Interesting, no?
If you’re struggling, it’s not just you. And it’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility…
We live in a world that’s always kind of crapped on creative people. Back in Leonardo da Vinci’s day, artists had to create crap they didn’t want to create for “sponsors” who paid them, so they could make the work they wanted to make and still be able to eat. That hasn’t changed much.
Medium has always used $100 as the threshold for “success” here, and even with so low a threshold, only 9% of people hit it. What would that number be if they told us how many people make over $500 or over $1000?
But you can’t entirely blame Medium.
There’s a boatload of truly bad content here. Some people can’t even be bothered to proof read before they submit. I spend a month as an editor and wow. I wanted to slap people for disrespecting everyone’s time. And I’m not talking typos — I’m talking unfinished sentences and rough notes they didn’t even bother to clean up. Just pure garbage they didn’t even finish.
On top of that, taste trumps quality more often than you’d want to know. Sometimes the sheer volume of inane “self help” drives me up the wall.
And to top it off, most people struggle with titles as much as I do and you can’t get a read if you can’t get the click first.
Like the giant cherry on top of the frustration sundae is the reduced traffic most writers are seeing. Something is happening. I don’t know what. No one does, because Medium hasn’t said anything.
That isn’t your fault. But it is your responsibility. And you need to ask yourself, what are you going to do to try change something? Because sitting around and waiting for someone to change things for you has never worked particularly well.
You can try different topics. You can try different publications.
Me, I’m working on seeding my content off Medium. Because I’ve noticed that my biggest hits on Medium start getting traction off Medium. If they do well in Google, they do well here.
It ticks me off a little, honestly. Because I don’t get paid for “external” views. But if that’s the only way to jumpstart some views here, I’ll try it. For how long, I don’t know. But life is little but an experiment in the first place. We try stuff and see what happens. Then adjust accordingly.
Don’t forget the adjust part. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and hoping for different results. I am many things. Crazy is not one of them. As I find more of what works, I’ll keep sharing.
Happy writing!