Should Medium Adopt A Paid Advertising Model?

Not for the reason you think.

There is something special about Medium.

The platform is pleasant to use. It takes a moment to figure out exactly why. That’s because the charm of Medium is not only created by what is there, but also by what is absent: advertising.

Medium is an enjoyable experience because it doesn’t display advertising. That is rare today.

Advertising drives everything in our world. Scenic highways are marred by billboards. FM radio has become unlistenable, with a ratio of 20 commercials for every song played. (Yes, I counted.) Even the act of filling up your car with gasoline is not exempt from advertising. Annoying video commercials now blare from the gas pump itself.

Medium does not rely on advertising. It is funded by user subscriptions. The lack of advertising gives Medium its sense of tranquility. It’s like a little house on the lake that is not defined by its amenities, but by its sense of peace and quiet.

At a platform level, Medium works. Writers write stories (often surprisingly good). And they get paid for it. Of course there is the usual grumbling among writers about low payouts and algorithm changes. But by and large the subscription model works. The reader enjoys an advertising-free reading experience, the writer earns a few coins, and Medium receives enough to keep the lights on. It’s a win/win for everybody.

Why, then, would Medium want to toy with the idea of advertising?

At first blush you would think it’s about money. If Medium accepted advertising, writers could earn more. The Medium platform would as well. The presence of advertisements would lessen the enjoyment of the reading experience but the economic picture would brighten.

The reason Medium should consider accepting advertisements has nothing to do with finance. It’s not about making writers wealthy or paying the overhead of the Medium platform. Rather, it’s a question of distribution.

Currently, only paying readers can read most Medium content. That significantly limits the pool of potential readers.

Medium has about 100 million active users. That sounds like a large number- and it is. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of potential readers out there. The global population is 8 billion people. That’s an awfully large potential audience for a Medium writer.

Of course, a Medium writer can post their work for free. They can either de-monetize a story or share it with a “Friend Link.” In that case they earn nothing from the story, regardless of how viral it goes.

Writers are reluctant to do this. Why should they offer their work for free? No other profession does that. Earning a few paltry coins is better than receiving none at all.

Is there a middle path- one that would allow a Medium writer to earn from their writing whether it was read by a paying Medium member or by the general public?

I believe there is.

My own experience as a Medium writer led me to this issue. In the early days of my Medium career- before I had secured 100 followers and thereby became eligible for the paying Medium Partner Program- I wrote a few stories that went viral.

The stories concerned current events of the day, such as the tragic implosion of the small submarine exploring the wreck of the Titanic and the unsettling case of a young man who jumped off a party boat in shark-infested Bahamian waters, never to be seen again.

With the magic of beginner’s luck, those stories went viral. They were picked up by mainstream news media outlets. They received thousands of views. And- you guessed it- I did not receive one cent.

I’m not unhappy about that. While pecuniary remuneration was absent, the boost to my writer’s ego more than compensated for it. But it did cause me to think.

Could Medium operate a hybrid model? One that incorporated the best aspects of a subscriber business model, and also the advertising model, while avoiding the worst traits of both?

I believe Medium can.

What I propose is this. Medium would continue to operate on a paid subscriber model. Those readers- the ones who are active subscribers, paying a monthly fee- would see no change in their Medium experience. They would be able to continue reading and browsing at will, suffering no advertising exposure.

Readers who are not Medium members would have a slightly different experience. One advertisement would be embedded in the story they read. Just one ad, placed there by Google AdSense or a similar program that tailors the ad to the interest of the viewers. The revenue from that one ad would be split between Medium and the author.

The ad would comprise fixed text or an unmoving picture. No blinking or moving advertisements would be permitted. (A site named GetPocket features brilliant writers, but has rendered their quality work unreadable due to the blinking and flashing advertisements on the side of the page. It’s a real shame, and Medium would avoid this mistake.)

Just one advertisement. That’s it.

It seems a fair tradeoff. A single ad per story would minimize annoyance for the reader. It would open Medium stories to a much wider audience, without requiring the penniless writer to proffer their work for free. And that is the real magic. Stories could go viral among a non-Medium audience- and Medium writers would still be paid.

The real value in this model is not the money. It’s the exposure.

A single AdSense ad is not going to make any writer rich, regardless of how well the story performs. What it does is allow the writer to gain exposure without sacrificing their economic interests. That exposure may turn out to be far more valuable for the writer than the few coins earned from an individual story.

For a writer, publicity is king.

Exposure lands book deals. It causes businesses to inbox you with offers for copywriting work. It causes newspaper editors to call you up and say “Would you like a job writing for us?”

What do you think of this idea? Leave your comments. I’m interested to hear if you thought it was a worthy idea, or one that- like the Titanic submersible and the kid who jumped in the water- is all wet and would end badly.

Thank you for reading! Please be sure to check out my library of other stories which, in the words of Muhammad Ali, “just might shock and amaze you!”