Medium Just Gave Out $500,000 To Writers — Wait, What?
My reaction to the bombshell news
“$500 for you, from members.”
That subject line made me do a double-take. I opened up the email from Medium and saw this message waiting for me:
Say what?
I was so dumbfounded by the news that it took me a while to realize they gave out half a million dollars to writers yesterday.
Medium literally handed the top 1,000 writers on their platform $500.
This is perhaps the weirdest Medium development of all time, and I have some thoughts..
Wait, What Happened?
So if you have questions about this, I’ll try to clear them up before we begin with my reaction post..
So Medium sent $500 to the top 1,000 writers on their platform yesterday.
It was listed as an “April Bonus” in the Partner Program Earnings page.
That’s what mine looked like.
What were the criteria for being a top 1,000 writer?
Based on the email, it centers around member reads, claps, and follows. So if you generated a lot of member read time, claps, and follows, then chances are you’re in the top 1,000 writers on Medium.
Why did Medium do this?
Oh, I could fill an entire blog post speculating about this. I really don’t know. I have no freaking idea. Maybe it’s an apology for the craziness of the past few months. Maybe they’re trying to create some goodwill after Ev’s bombshell announcement a few months back. Maybe they want to show the internet that Medium > Substack.
Hell, maybe they’re just trying to be nice. Maybe it’s all of the above. We’ll never know, but I do have to give them major props for shelling out half a million dollars to the people who are helping build their platform.
In the words of Lebron James, “It’s about damn time.”
Where did Medium come up with the money for this payout?
Well, they have hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers and they just let a bunch of their staff go (see my blog post about Ev’s announcement). Maybe this is the money they used to pay their big wig Editors and writers.
Okay, now that we got the background situated, let’s get to my reactions..
1. Thank You, Medium
We got to give credit where credit is due. Medium literally sent many of us a care package yesterday with no strings attached.
The message I got from this gesture was simple “Thanks Tom for writing with us, we value your articles — keep being a crucial part of the Medium community.”
I’ve been pretty critical of Medium in the last few months here, and most of that criticism was born from a place of “You don’t care about the people who built your damn platform.”
Well, this amazing gift flies in the face of all that. I wanted to acknowledge the great gesture from Medium, and say thank you, before I get into some of my deeper reactions.
2. Medium Is Rolling In The Dough?
Shit, $500,000 is nothing to scoff at. For a while there was this belief among the community that Medium was essentially bleeding money and not making any profit at all.
I heard people talk about that all the time in 2016–2019. Medium raised a couple rounds of funding since its inception, but based on recent reports they have a couple hundred thousand paying subscribers, which is pretty damn solid.
Hell, Ev might’ve been the real culprit behind this payout. Maybe he reached deep into his pockets and pulled out half a milly for his homies on Medium.
All I know is, if Medium really needed it, that half a million probably could’ve gone towards developing new features or something. The fact they just paid it out to us without any announcement makes me believe they’re rolling in the fucking Benjamins.
3. What Does This Move Say About The Future Of Medium?
“The board is set, and the pieces are moving.”
-Gandalf
I don’t know why that Gandalf quote just popped into my head. He’s got a point, though. Businesses don’t just hand out half a million dollars in bonuses for no reason.
This was a business move as much as a charitable one.
Medium made a statement yesterday.
Weirdly enough, this isn’t the first time Medium’s handed out one-off payments to writers. I remember back in 2018 they used to hand out $100 bonuses to lesser-known writers who wrote exceptional stories.
I mean, I don’t expect you to know that because you young people weren’t here back in my day.
But I remember *gazes off into the horizon*
So, getting back to the point, what does this say about the future of Medium?
Basically I heard them telling me this:
“We care about OUR writers. We are going to pay YOU now, not a bunch of staff members who didn’t care that much about us before we hired them.”
“We are giving the money back to you, our indie creators. Thank you.”
I definitely don’t think this is a one-time thing. I think this is going to be a semi-regular occurrence. It could be a monthly occurrence.
Hell, maybe it won’t ever happen again exactly like this for 1,000 writers at a time, but I do think Medium will start finding ways to reward creators for their hard work in the form of bonuses and what not moving forward.
One last thing I want to touch on is this..
These payments are the ushering in of a new era on Medium. I think — and maybe I’m looking at this with rosy colored glasses — that they’re going to start prioritizing their writers again.
Bra-fucking-vo.
Bravo.
Fucking well done, Ev.
I think this is the first of many. The first of a lot of cool new bonuses and incentives for writers to publish on Medium. Bring it on.
Now all you gotta do is fix your algorithm, Medium. 😉
Get my free 5-day Medium writing course right here. It’ll teach you how to write five posts per week and become a top writer on Medium. :)