It’s Time To Say “Farewell” To Being a Medium Writer

Explaining why this is my last post on the platform

Walking off into the sunset (Night Cafe AI)

I joined Medium in November 2021, making my first post in December.

Since then, I have written about 800 posts on the platform (I currently have 604, but I’ve deleted a whole bunch over the years) and have earned about $18,700.

But it’s time to draw stumps and move on…

Why? Three reasons come to mind.

First, I can’t find the enthusiasm to write on Medium anymore.

I wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago about suffering from what I believed to be a touch of writer’s block.

I now realise it was more than that.

Most writers on Medium have a season. We come with a burst of enthusiasm. Then, at some point, the excitement fades.

I’ve written almost every day for two-and-a-bit years — so I’ve had a good run.

I think I’m a decent writer — not the best on Medium, but I think I’m OK.

But I’m not a “natural born writer” as some people here claim to be. I don’t have words “burning within that I need to get out there…”

I’m simply an average Joe who can write a bit — but has lots of other strings to his bow that he now wants to enjoy…

Second, I disagree with how Medium has altered the payment structure over the past 12 months.

I’ve never been a fan of the Boost Program, and my misgivings have only increased over time.

I believe the Boost Program attempted to fix a problem that didn’t exist.

Before Boosting, the payments were based on “reading time” — which meant there was a straight line between the amount of time people spent reading our work and the amount we got paid.

That connection has been severed with the new methodology — giving excessive power to a coterie of gatekeepers to nominate stories.

How’s that going, folks?

Now, I have had a few boosted posts — albeit I haven’t had even one in 2024.

I appreciate that is primarily because I resist the temptation to chase boosts. Just not my thing…

But even the few posts I got boosted didn’t earn anything like the amounts of posts that I got traction with before boosting became a thing.

Everywhere I look on Medium, I see more and more people railing against falling views, reads and earnings. Where’s all the money going? It seems like a few people at the top are hoovering up the bulk of the Medium payment pot — and I don’t think that’s how it should be.

It’s gone from a meritocracy to a race to impress the “nominator” crowd — and that doesn’t sit right with me.

Third, I have lots of other things I want to do

As I’ve said in various memoir-type posts, my motivation on Medium has always been to earn money to supplement my pension pot since I took early retirement in 2021.

Since I won’t receive a UK State Pension until early 2025, I needed a way to bolster my (relatively modest) church pension.

It was either Medium — or going out and getting a part-time job. Yikes!!!

It’s been awesome. But it’s meant putting many other things I wanted to do in retirement onto the back burner — because writing lots on Medium takes up a lot of time if one does it seriously.

I’ve got a stash of model kits in the corner, a pile of jigsaws still in shrink-wrap, and several board games “unpunched.”

Then there’s the Word Doc of days out and weekends away that my wife keeps asking when we start working through…

See, there isn’t much point in earning money from Medium if one never has the time to spend it because we’re writing more articles…

Between spending time with “the missus”, enjoying hobbies, learning new things and finishing that book I always intended to write, it feels like time to switch gears in my life.

So long — and thanks for all the fish…

Yeah, so there we go…

I’m not cancelling my Medium membership — at least not for now. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to enjoy simply being a Medium Reader.

I didn’t write this post to elicit sympathy or — even worse — hope that people will persuade me to change my mind. In fact, I decided to stop writing a while ago.

I wrote it because I didn’t want to do what many people do — namely, disappear suddenly without a word, leaving people wondering what the hell had happened to them.

So, all that remains is for me to thank everyone who ever read my articles, commented, clapped or interacted in any way.