The Latest Changes to Medium Could Make a Big Difference to You

On 24th March 2021, Medium’s CEO posted an editorial team update

“We announced a buyout and leadership change to the Medium editorial team today.”

Ev Williams, CEO of Medium, partner at Obvious Ventures, co-founder of Twitter, is changing the way Medium operates.

You can read the full email here. It starts:

Team,

We are making some changes to our editorial strategy and leadership and giving a voluntary exit option to employees who would like to take a different path.

This was enough to prickle the hairs on the back of my neck. Exit options to employees are never a good sign. It means you can’t pay them.

Ev Williams points out he achieved his goal to publish ‘great original content,’ but,

“… we didn’t have the right business model to support it.”

From 2018, that changed. The subscriber base grew alongside the professional content submitted through Medium publications. There have been many successes and even some awards. But some didn’t work.

“What’s worked less well is where we’ve followed the traditional editorial playbook — specifically, commissioning stories from professional writers into publications with broad mandates.”

“… and we’re not near where we need to be to make it work economically.”

Translate that as ‘burning cash’.

So it is changing. Medium is now going to identify writers — not necessarily on Medium — and offer them deals.

Wait a minute! I thought this was a level playing field? Now you are going to pluck the writers you like from anywhere, influencers perhaps? And everyone else will be left to pick up the scraps.

Ev Williams is embracing change. Clearly, there are have been issues.

“If not for our willingness to make hard changes, we’d still be chasing ad dollars as our main business model — if we were still in business at all.”

The email includes details of a voluntary separation program (VSP) for staff. Did that not used to be a severance package?

Nobody likes to hear that. I haven’t been on this platform all that long, but I have grown to love it and the people involved with it. It’s been a tough love and who doesn’t need that?

This won’t be the last change to Medium. Ev Williams said it himself.

“What about our pubs? Honestly, I think it will take a lot more experimentation to figure out what their role is on the platform. And we need to experiment more efficiently than we have been to date.”

“The most important thing is that we need to iterate quickly and optimize for what’s working.”

How will this make a difference to you?

Unless you have someone to hold your hand and guide you through the maze that is Medium, it can take a long time to get your head around how it works.

It's disheartening to have your lovingly crafted piece rejected from every publication. It can be even more disheartening to have it published only for it to languish in the doldrums.

No matter your background, knowledge, or experience, there is a learning curve that comes with writing on Medium.

There is an old saying,

“It is not about how fast you can climb the ladder. It’s about what wall the ladder is placed on and if it’s the right wall for you.”

So, you found the right wall and you were climbing the right ladder. I felt I was on the right ladder, on the same day Ev Williams sent his email I was congratulated for being a top writer in Humor.

The announcement from Medium’s CEO could mean that they just moved the prize to another wall. And that they will continue to do so.

It’s difficult to score a goal if they keep moving the goalposts.

Unless, of course, they are moving the goalposts closer to you. And I believe this is what is going to happen.

Change is inevitable

For millions of years, our ancestors evolved slowly, Yuval Harari describes it in his book Sapiens, how our cognitive revolution took us from being an animal of no significance to our scientific revolution.

The pace of change has been exponential. The gap between using a stone to crack a nut to us making the first wheel is millions of years. The time between the first wheel and the first car only 5,000. There is only a tiny slit in history between the first car and us putting a man on the moon.

And since then? If you added all the computer power available in the world on the day Neil Armstrong said, “One small step for man…” Well, the phone in your pocket has more computing power than that.

We humans, not just us writers, have to embrace change. We have to accept it in our lives and we have to accept it on Medium. And that means adapting. Adapt or die — or at least, hang up your pen.

It will be interesting to see how Medium operates from here. There will be times when it is frustrating and there will be times we are pleasantly surprised.

Hope for your future on Medium

“For the foreseeable future, we will focus that talent on supporting independent voices on our platform. This means identifying writers — both already on Medium and not — and offering them deals, support, editing, and feedback to help them tell great stories and find their audience.”

With this statement, Ev Williams has given me hope that a greater emphasis will be placed on the writers as opposed to the publications. Perhaps we will find ourselves having more involvement with the Medium team. I think everyone would appreciate help and encouragement — even top writers need a pat on the back sometimes, it’s not all about the money.

Medium isn’t a sinking ship. Ev Williams isn’t trying to salvage a wreck. He’s steering a cruise ship.

And these Goliaths take some time to turn.

In the meantime, all of us on board should have some fun. It’s a magical mystery tour. We don’t know where we are going to end up — but I hope it is somewhere nice.