Medium and Stripe: A Neo-Colonial Partnership?

Why are so many writers excluded from the Partner Program?

Alright, the title is a tad hyperbolic but perhaps it caught your attention?

Or maybe not. You have 100 followers or more, and you live in a country eligible for the Medium Partner Program. You’re good to go. You’re gone.

But maybe you are interested?

A Privileged few…again

As you probably know, only a microscopic number of countries are eligible for the Partner Program. It’s essentially because Stripe (the financial platform Medium chose to pay writers) operates only in select places.

“Stripes’ countries” are overwhelmingly located in Europe, twenty-five to be exact. European countries represent 75% of the 33 Partner eligible countries. This statistic prompted the over-the-top title for this article.

Stripe might have not set out to intentionally exclude countries. It might even be slowly working on expanding its field operations, but for now, it comes across as a bad case of Northern elitism.

Our fellow writers in the global South are literally excluded from earning opportunities. And these writers are probably, but not necessarily, the ones who might need an additional income the most.

Mind you, savvy authors here have pointedly shown that a meager 6% of writers make $100 or more through their writing on Medium. As a small consolation, 6% is better than the infamous 1%.

We’re probably all in the same barely afloat boat, but at least we’re not excluded from the outset. We are allowed in the boat.

I’ve read many frustrated writers’ testimonials regarding Stripe. The inability to join the Partner program seems to be a longstanding problem. There barely seems to be any progress on expanding the list of eligible countries. Or any discussion of alternate payment methods in the meantime. What’s the rush?

The bad colonial optics would have me urgently look for solutions.

Discrimination and then some

I find the Stripe setup incredibly discriminatory.

Beyond the barrier to potentially earning an income, what type of message are we sending to people who are de facto excluded from the “Partner” Program?

“You matter less?”

“We’re not that interested in your writing anyway?”

“Wait, what? You too want to be paid? You’re here for the love of writing, right?”

Are we ok with being part of a platform that so egregiously discriminates against some of its members? I’m not ok with it.

I don’t care if the bulk of writers lives in the North. You don’t set up a platform with any type of exclusion embedded in its fabric. Period.

Should people pay when they are excluded from earning?

I’m a paying Medium member. But if my country was excluded from possible earnings, I’d have very little incentive to pay for that membership.

Who in their right mind wants to pay when they can read and publish for free elsewhere? I suppose I’m one of those people since Medium costs me far more than it earns me.

I’ve also come across sanctimonious comments along the lines of “$5 a month is very little, everyone can afford that!” or “every writer should be paying to be part of Medium.”

First, you never know people’s true financial situation, so it would be best to refrain from passing sweeping judgments on how people allocate their money. Second, $5 in the US or Europe might not be much (it’s a lot for a low-income person anywhere) but it might be a true financial hardship in other countries.

We can’t berate people for not paying a membership while at the same time doing sweet nothing to reform the earning mechanisms on Medium.

The Stripe setup, as it currently stands, is fundamentally unacceptable. We can’t let this “accident of geography” tarnish and strain our community of writers.

Looking forward to real change

I’m glad to hear the new Medium CEO is listening. That sounds like an urgent first step. Let’s hope it leads to sweeping changes.

Medium needs to show it welcomes every single writer equally. That starts by affording everyone the opportunity to get paid for their work.