MEDIUM
Time for Medium to Grow
It’s about time that more non-Western Nations be brought into the MPP
I set five New Year’s Resolutions for Medium to investigate during the year, and while I cannot expect the good people here to see my suggestions over a cacophony of other critiques and demands, I am going to continue to harp on about them. There’s a link to the article below, but for now, here are the main points.
5. Weeklong free trials 4. A more transparent algorithm 3. More love for the publications 2. A better site / app experience 1. Monetization for more of the world
I will be reviewing their resolutions and how they are going sometime at the beginning of next month — I have staggered their deadlines for them — how generous of me — but I would like to see if there is any progress being made.
The one I have been pushing most, as well as being the one that had the closest deadline of expectation is Monetization for more of the world. Currently 33 nations (or at least most of them — some overseas dependencies are not eligible) have access to this.
It is interesting to see that the countries in question are predominantly European or European dominant. The nations eligible that are not either in Europe or are predominantly white are as follows: Australia Canada Hong Kong Japan Mexico New Zealand Singapore United States
All of these would fit into the idea of the Western Democracy, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore being among the most Western aligned nations in Asia. Indeed, it is quite surprising not to see the Korean Republic (South Korea) in the list too.
[Then as now, people in Ukraine and Russia are not able to participate in the MPP officially, so no action was, or had to be taken. Let us hope that the aggressive Russian invasion is brought to an end before very much longer.]
Given that the MPP relies exclusively on Stripe for paying out money, one might think that this could be a problem on the part of Stripe, that Stripe fails to cover more than 33 nations. However, according to my latest peep at the Stripe webpage, we can see that they work in 47 nations (6 of which are still in a beta mode). The non-European countries that the MPP does not reach are as follows: Brazil India Malaysia United Arab Emirates
These are supplemented by the nations still previewing, including Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
This is a pretty small sample of the world, but Medium does not yet he stretch to cover them yet. Is there a plan in the works like this? Surely it cannot be an impossibility to get word back on why not?
I wonder though, would they listen to a small time poster here? I certainly don’t yield the same kind of income for the site as many out there. It would be great if a Zulie Rane, a Tim Denning, or one of the many other superstars of Medium could chip in on this. Maybe even an Ev Williams?
Some other stories in this vein include
You can find these and more of my stories about Medium here: