Medium Partner Program Extended to Include More Countries

Writers from India can start earning

Last night an exciting announcement was made — from 1st August, the Medium Partner Program will include more countries!

Anyone who feels peeved that they’ve been locked out of the Medium Partner Program due to their geographical location can relax, check if they’re included, and start celebrating if they are!

Buster Benson writing on the Medium Blog said

On August 1st, we will expand the Partner Program to accept applications for these additional 12 countries: Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Hungary, India, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Malta, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. By the end of the year, we plan to open up to another 50 or so.

That’s great news for frustrated writers who’ve been prevented from joining the Partner Program until now.

But some people have previously expressed reservations about the wisdom of inviting more non-English speakers to start earning on Medium. Will it mean the platform suffers from a proliferation of broken English?

Well, some native English speakers are perfectly capable of writing bad content despite it being their first language. So hopefully those who write well will rise to the top, regardless of their location.

All writers are encouraged to use AI like Grammarly to improve their English, and those who struggle with language skills might not be attracted to a blogging platform written in English anyway.

Earnings generated on Medium will be worth a lot more in India than in a place like the UK or the USA, so there’s an obvious attraction for people who live in developing countries. Writers could improve their standard of living by contributing to the platform. Some professional Indian publications are written in English anyway — it’s such a commonly spoken second language over there.

There is one catch, however. New members of the Medium Partner Program will have to pay for a monthly membership to start earning, so only those with the writing skills to be able to recoup their monthly fee might be attracted to join Medium initially.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out and whether it changes the dynamics of the platform.

Read more about the changes to Medium and how writers' pay will be changing in August…